THE ARTS 



OF 

WRITING, READING 

AND 

SPEAKING, 

or 

LETTERS TO A LAW STUDENT. 



BY EDWARD W. COX, 

» i 

RECORDER OF FALMOUTH, AUTHOR OF "THE ADVOCATE," ETC. 




LONDON : 

JOHN CROCKFORD, 10, WELLINGTON STREET. 
1863. 



LONDON : 

XTBU BY JOHN CROOK FOR D, IU, WELUNv! rON STHEEY. 
STRANR 



PREFACE, 



This work was commenced with the purpose only to impart 
to Law Students some hints on the Art of Speaking, which 
had been suggested to the writer by experience and observa- 
tion. It was expanded into its present form when, having 
been commenced, the writer was impressed with the conviction 
that to speak well it is necessary to be able to write well 
and read well. Hence the addition of these subjects to the 
original design. The writer trusts that they will not be found 
uninteresting or uninstructive. 

1, Essex Court, Temple, 
August, 1863. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Letter I. 

Introductory '. page 1 

Letter II. 

The Objects, Uses and Advantages of the Art of Speaking 7 
Letter III. 

The Foundations of the Art of Speaking 15 

ART OF WRITING. 

Letter IV. 

First Lessons in the Art of Writing 21 

Letter V. 

Reading and Thinking 28 

Letter VI. 

Style 34 

Letter VII. 

Language 40 

Letter VIII. 

Words — Sentences — Rhythm 46 



vi 



CONTENTS, 



Letter IX. 

The Art of Writing . . page 54 

ART OF READING, 

Letter X s 

The Art of Reading 59 

Letter XI, 

The Art of Reading— What to Avoid— Articulation , s . . s , 66 
Letter XII. 

Pronunciation— Expression 72 

Letter XIII. 

The Art of the Actor and the Reader 77 

Letter XIV. 

The Management of the Voice —Tone 83 

Letter XV. 

Emphasis 90 

Letter XVI. 

Pause — Punctuation- — Management of the Breath— Inflection 96 
Letter XVII. 

Attitude — Influence of the Mental over the Physical Powers 104 
Letter XVIII. 

Illustrations 112 

Letter XIX. 

Illustrations of Tone, Emphasis and Pause 121 

Letter XX. 

Illustrations (Continued) 127 

Letter XXI. 

Illustrations (Continued) 135 

Letter XXII. 

Wow to Read Poetiy 143 

Letter XXIII. 

Reading of Narrative, Argument and Sentiment 152 



CONTENTS-. 



vii 



Letter XXIV, 

Special Readings — The Bible ... ... ... page 160 

Letter XXV. 

Dramatic Reading ... ... 167 

Letter XXVI. 

The Uses of Reading ... 176 

ART OF SPEAKING. 

Letter XXVII. 

The Art of Speaking 181 

Letter XXVIII. 
Foundations of the Art of Speaking ... ... 185 

Letter XXIX. 

The Art of Speaking— What to Say — Composition 188 

Letter XXX. 

Cautions — How to Begin ..194 

Letter XXXI. 

The First Lesson- — Writing a Speech ... 200 

Letter XXXII. 

The Art of Speaking — First Lessons ... 205 

Letter XXXIII. 
Public Speaking 211 

1 Letter XXXIV. 
Delivery 217 * 

Letter XXXV. 

Action 225 

Letter XXXVI. 
The Construction of a Speech 231 

Letter XXXVII. 
The Oratory of the Pulpit ... ...239 

Letter XXXVIII. 
The Oratory of the Senate 248 



Vlll 



CONTENTS, 



Letter XXXIX, 
The Oratory of the Bar ... 

Letter XL. 
The Oratory of the Bar (Continued) 

Letter XLL 
The Oratory of the Bar (Concluded) 

Letter XLII. 
The Oratory of the Platform 

Letter XLIII. 
The Oratory of the Platform (Continued) 

Letter XLIV. 
The Oratory of the Platform (Continued) 

Letter XLV. 
The Oratory of the Platform (Concluded) 

Letter XL VI. 
Social Oratory 



Postcript — Hints for Public Readings ... 
Exorcises in Reading 



THE AETS 

OF 

WRITING, READING AND 
SPEAKING. 



Letter I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

You have asked me for some hints to help you in your 
studies of the Art of Oratory. I readily comply with 
your request, and I will endeavour to throw together my 
thoughts upon the theme, in a shape that may possibly 
be useful to others also. It is a subject to which I have 
given some attention, and on which I hope that I may 
be enabled to convey to you a little information not to 
be found in existing treatises. 

But I must take the liberty 6f changing one part of 
its name. I do not like the title — oratory — because it has 
a pretentious sound. We do not think or talk of a man 
as an Orator, unless he excels in the art ; we look upon 
an oration as something higher and grander than a speech. 
If a man were to call himself " an orator," we should call 
him vain ; but he might call himself '-'a speaker " with- 

B 



2 THE AET8 OF WRITING, READING AND SPEAKING. 

out reproach to his modesty. So, if I were to profess to 
give you hints for the study of oratory, I should be 
reasonably met by the objection that I am not myself " an 
orator," and therefore have no right to appear as a teacher 
of oratory. But by the requirements of my Profession 
I am compelled to be " a speaker" — an indifferent one, I 
know — and therefore I may venture, without incurring 
the charge of presumption, to tell to others so much as 
I may chance to have learned about the art of speaking. 

But there are two other accomplishments, — Arts so 
intimately allied to the Art of Speaking, that I could not 
treat fully and satisfactorily of the one, without treating 
more or less of the others. I propose, therefore, to enlarge 
the main subject, and embracing the allied Arts of 
Writing, Reading and Speaking, to treat of each sepa- 
rately, but with more particular reference to the 
connection of the Arts of Composition and of Beading 
with the Art of Speaking. 

And this -title, indeed, exactly expresses my design. 
I contemplate nothing more than to convey to you the 
lessons taught to me by my own experience, reading and 
reflection, relating to the arts by which a man is enabled 
publicly to give utterance to his own thoughts, and the 
thoughts of others, so that his audience may hear him 
without pain and his readers understand him without 
difficulty. 

Writing is a necessary part of the education of every- 
body and Reading ought to be so. Oratory is the business 
of the Bar and of the Church : it is only the accomplish- 
ment of other callings. Unless you are content to subside 
into the chamber counsel, or to sit for ever briefless in 
the courts, you must learn to think aloud, to clothe 
your thoughts in appropriate language, and so to utter 



I. INTRODUCTORY. 



8 



thein that your audience may listen to you willingly. 
To do this is not wholly a gift of nature, though many 
of nature's gifts are needed for its accomplishment. It- 
is an art, to be learned by careful study and laborious 
practice. I do not assert that it can be acquired by all 
who may desire its attainment ; on the contrary, it is 
certain that many are by nature disqualified from even 
tolerable proficiency in it. But if you possess the 
qualifications, mental and physical, requisite for the work, 
it is certain that you may advance to much greater 
proficiency in the art by pursuing it as an art, instead of 
leaving it, as is the too frequent practice, to be developed 
by accident and cultivated by chance. 

When I was entering, as you are now, upon the study 
of my Profession, conscious of the necessity for acquiring 
the art of speaking, I sought anxiously in the libraries 
for a teacher. I found many books professing to elucidate 
the mysteries of elocution, and each contained some hints 
that were useful, amid much that was useless. But none 
supplied the information I wanted. One was great upon 
inflexions of the voice ; another was learned upon logic ; 
a third discoursed eloquently on rhetoric ; and a fourth 
professed to teach the composition of a sentence. All were 
illustrated by extracts from plays, poems, sermons, and 
stock speeches of long past parliamentary oracles. There 
was no harm in all this, it is true — it was not wholly 
worthless ; but it did not supply what I required. I 
wanted to be told what I was to do, how to do it, and 
how to learn to do it. After pondering over the pages 
of my many masters, I did not feel myself better 
qualified to stand up and make a speech ; on the 
contrary, I was perplexed by the multitude of counsellors, 
and the variety and often the contradictions of their 

b 2 



4 THE ARTS OF WRITING^, READING- AND SPEAKING, 

counsel, and I felt that if it was necessary that I should, 
while speaking, think of a twentieth part of the pro- 
pounded rules, I should have no time to think what to 
say, I turned the key of my door and attempted to put 
those rules into practice where failure would not be ruin, 
and I found that neither language, nor voice, nor gesture, 
as prescribed in the books, was natural, or easy — but 
pedantic, stiff and ungainly. After patient trial, I 
threw aside the books and sought to acquire the art of 
speaking by another process — by writing, to give me 
facility and correctness of expression ; and by reading 
aloud, to give me the art of utterance. 

Success was, however, but partial. No practical 
guidance in the arts of writing or of reading could be 
obtained from the works that professed to teach them. I 
had to grope my way to the object, halting and stumbling, 
moving on and trying back, but nevertheless making 
some progress. I learned as much (or more) from 
failures as from successes, for thus I was taught what not 
to do. Assistance was eagerly sought in every quarter 
whence help could come. I read books and listened to 
lectures, "sat under" eloquent preachers, watched 
famous actors, frequented public meetings, political and 
religious, and even practised in a small way to worthy 
and independent electors who were too tipsy to be critical. 
From all this I gathered a great deal of information, not 
to be found in scientific treatises, of the manner in which 
a man must talk if he would persuade his fellow-men. 
Subsequent experience has much enlarged that knowledge. 
The requirements of my Profession provided me with 
almost daily opportunities for seeing and hearing orators 
of all ranges of power and skill, observing audiences of all 
classes and capacities, and noting the treatment of sub- 



I. INTRODUCTORY. 



5 



jects of infinite variety to kindle the speaker and attract 
the hearers. When I was a listener, the question was ever 
present to my mind, " How are we, the hearers, affected 
by this ? Are you, the speaker, going to work in the 
right way to effect your purpose ? " If it was a failure, 
I have asked myself, wherefore it was so ? If a success, 
what was the secret of it ? 

My personal experiences have not been large, but they 
have been very valuable to me as means for making trial 
of suggestions gathered from listening to the efforts of 
others. They have been still more useful by proving to 
me, that it is one thing to know what ought to be done, 
and another thing to do it. 

Diligent study had taught me a great deal of what I 
might to do, but I could achieve only partial success in 
the doing of it. Performance fell very far indeed short of 
knowledge. I made the unpleasing discovery — that 
faults which are personal are not removed by mental 
recognition of the right. I felt painfully, from the first, 
that I could not act up to my own intentions nor put 
into practice that which I was able to present accurately 
in theory. 

I state this that you may understand wherefore I 
presume to teach what I confess myself incompetent to 
practise ; and why, being but an indifferent speaker, I 
venture to treat of the art of speaking. Plainly, then, it 
is in this wise. From my youth up I have devoted much 
time and thought to the subject. By observation, 
reading, experience and reflection, I have obtained some 
practical knowledge how the art of speaking may be 
studied and should be practised, which, collected and 
arranged and set forth as clearly as I can, may, perhaps, 
save you much of the labour that was lost to myself for 



6 THE ARTS OF "WRITING, READING AND SPEAKING. 

the want of an assistant and guide. In a few letters I 
may possibly be enabled to convey to you the fruit of 
years of unassisted toil ; and although I cannot hold out 
to you the promise that any amount of instruction can, 
without long and large practice, accomplish you as an 
Orator, I am not without hope that you may so far profit 
by my hints as to escape many of the difficulties and 
some of the errors that have beset myself and into which 
the unguided steps of a learner are sure to fall. 



Letter II. 

THE OBJECTS, USES AND ADVANTAGES OF THE 
ART OF SPEAKING. 

I must again remind yon that the art of speaking is the 
business of the barrister and the clergyman ; it is only an 
accomplishment with other men, but an accomplishment 
of such incalculable worth, that a stranger would 
suppose it to form a necessary part of every scheme of 
education. Strange to say, it is, on the contrary, almost 
wholly neglected, even by those with whom some skill 
in it is a part of their profession. It is not taught in 
our schools. Not one in a hundred of those who study 
for the Church or the Bar thinks it incumbent upon him 
to learn how to write, read and speak, although he will 
labour sedulously, with the help of the best masters, to 
obtain other needful knowledge. We see multitudes 
industriously setting themselves to learn the art of 
singing : it appears not to be known that the arts of 
writing, reading and speaking demand equally patient 
study, and equally good instruction, and are vastly 
more useful when they are attained. 

You will be astonished if you attempt to measure the 
extent of this neglect in England of the arts of reading 



8 THE ARTS OF WRITING, READING AND SPEAKING, 

and speaking. The foundation of speaking is reading ; 
if yon read "badly, you will not speak well. Now 
run over in your thoughts a list of your acquaintances r 
how many of them can stand up and utter two sentences 
on the most commonplace subject without confusion and 
stammering ? Nay, how many could take up a book and 
read a page of it with even an approach to propriety ? 
Certainly not one in fifty of them. And this discredit- 
able gap in English education runs through all classes ; 
the defect in training for the right use of the parts of 
speech is as apparent in the highest as in the lowest. 
Still more strange is the neglect by those whose callings 
might have been supposed to make the study of reading 
and speaking a necessary part of their education— the 
politician, the clergyman, the barrister, Of these, the 
very business is to talk, and to talk so as to persuade ; 
and to persuade they must be heard ; and to be heard 
they must so talk as to please the ears, while satisfying 
the minds, of the listeners. But how few of them 
are able to do this ! How few can read or speak other- 
wise than badly — giving pain instead of pleasure to 
an audience ! And why ? Because they have not learned 
to read and speak, or tried to leam ; they have not 
recognised writing, reading and speaking, as accomplish- 
merits to be acquired — as arts to be studied. 

Take our Politicians : go into the House of Commons, 
where you would expect to find all the members, by 
virtue of their calling, more or less competent to con- 
struct and utter a sentence intelligibly. Here are the 
picked men, chosen by constituencies, as we should 
suppose, because they could represent them creditably. 
Yet what miserable sticks most of them are ; what non- 
sense they talk, and how badly they talk it. They want 



II. OBJECTS, USES AND ADVANTAGES. 



9 



every grace of oratory, they exhibit every defect. It is 
not merely that great orators are few — that mediocrity 
abounds — for this must be the case everywhere so long 
as Providence is pleased to make greatness rare ; but 
there is not even mediocrity ; mediocrity is itself an 
exception ; positive badness is the rule. 

Nor is it better in the Pulpit. How few of all our 
preachers can lay claim to the title of orator ; how rare 
is a good reader ; how abundant are the positively bad 
readers ! What public men have such advantages, in the 
greatness of their subjects, in their privilege to appeal to 
the loftiest as well as to the profoundest emotions of 
humanity, in the command they have of their audience, 
who must hear, or seem to hear, to the end of the 
discourse ? And yet how rarely do we find these advan- 
tages turned to account — how few can preach a good 
sermon, truly eloquent in composition and eloquently 
uttered, and how still more infrequent are they who 
can read with propriety a chapter in the Bible, so as to 
convey its meaning in the most impressive form to the 
ear, and through the ear to the mind. It is plain that, 
as a body, the clergy — and I allude to those of all 
denominations — do not make the arts of writing, speak- 
ing and reading a portion of their course of study. 

The Bar is a little, but, I must confess, only a very 
little, better. As with the clergyman, the business of 
the banister is to talk ; but how many barristers can 
talk even tolerably ? Spend a day in any of our 
courts ; watch well the speakers ; take your pencil anc(> 
set them down in your note-book under the divisions 
of good, tolerable, indifferent, bad, and you will be 
astonished to find how few fall into the first class, how 
many into the others. But you will thus make acquaint- 
b 3 



10 THE ARTS OF WRITING, READING AND SPEAKING, 

ance with those only who have obtained business, some 
by reason of their talking powers, others in spite of 
inability to make a decent speech. All these are only a 
fraction of the whole group of wigs before you. It may 
be assumed that nine-tenths of those who do not open their 
lips are as incapable of opening them with effect as are 
their more fortunate brethren. It might well be supposed 
that men would not betake themselves to a profession, 
whose business it is to talk, without first ascertaining if 
they possess the necessary natural qualifications and after- 
wards making a regular study of the accomplishments on 
which their fortunes will depend. The fact that they 
do not this — that men go to the Bar in crowds, although 
wanting the capacities which nature gives, or, having 
them, without devoting the slightest study to their 
cultivation — sufficiently proves that the professional 
mind in England is not yet thoroughly convinced that 
speaking is an art, to be cultivated like any other art, 
the foundation of which must be laid by nature, but 
whose entire superstructure is the work of learning and 
of labour. I cannot tell why it should be so. We 
should think it almost an act of insanity if a man were 
to make music or painting his profession, without 
previous study of the art he proposes to practise. But 
the barrister and the clergyman habitually commit 
this folly, and make it their profession to read and to 
speak, without having learned how to do rightly the one 
or the other. 

It is otherwise in America. The art of oratory is 
universally studied and practised there. It is considered 
to be as much a necessary part of the routine of educa- 
tion as writing, or arithmetic, and infinitely more 
important than music, drawing, or dancing. The 



II. OBJECTS, USES AND ADVANTAGES. 11 



consequence is that America abounds in orators. I am 
not setting up American oratory as a model — -far from 
it — nor do I say that so much talk is desirable ; but 
there is a wide difference between their excessive fluency 
and our excessive taciturnity. They sin against good 
taste often ; they indulge too much in the flowers of 
speech ; but that is better than our English incapacity 
to speak at all. 

What, then, is the meaning of the general neglect in 
this country, as a part of education, of those studies 
which might have been supposed to be the foremost 
pursuit of all whose special business it is to read and 
speak — and especially by the Clergy, the Bar, and the 
Solicitors ? If these Professions are so negligent, it is 
not surprising that the public, with whom these arts 
are only accomplishments, should be equally negligent. 

I suspect that the cause of the neglect lies, not so 
much in ignorance of the value of the art when acquired, 
as in a strange prejudice, widely prevailing, that to read 
and to speak are natural gifts, not to be implanted, and 
scarcely to be cultivated, by art. In the Church, the 
bad readers, being the majority, have circulated a stupid 
notion that to read well is theatrical. Among the 
Lawyers, there is an equally fallacious notion that 
studied speaking must be stilted speaking. I shall have 
occasion to show you hereafter how unfounded and false 
are these objections ; at present, it suffices merely to 
notice them, as influential sources of the negligence of 
which I am complaining. 

Another cause of the neglect of the study of the art 
of speaking, as an art, will at the first statement of it 
somewhat surprise you, but a little experience and 
observation will soon satisfy you of its truth. A bad 



12 THE ARTS OF WRITING, READING AND SPEAKING, 

reader is scarcely conscious of his incapacity. So it is 
with a bad speaker, but with this difference, that 
whereas all can read somehow, and the only distinction is 
between bad reading and good reading, all cannot speak ; 
consequently, while nobody thinks he reads badly, many 
know that they cannot speak at all. But this you may 
be assured of, that, as no man who reads seems to be 
conscious that he reads badly, so no man who speaks at 
all is conscious that he speaks badly. The fact is, that 
we cannot hear and see ourselves. In reading, we know 
what the words of the author are intended to express, 
and we suppose that we express them accordingly ; and 
in speaking, we know what we designed to say, and we 
think that we are saying it properly. It is very difficult 
to convince leader or speaker that to other ears he is a 
failure. 

No man imagines that he can sing well, or play well 
upon an instrument, without learning to sing or play, for 
two or three trials prove to him his incapacity ; he is 
unable to bring out the notes he wants, and he breaks 
down altogether. But every man can read after a 
fashion, and utter a sentence or two, however rudely, and 
therefore his imperfection is not made so apparent to 
himself — it is a question only of degree ; and being able 
to read and speak, and not being conscious how he reads 
and speaks, he cannot easily be satisfied that he reads 
and speaks badly, and that proficiency must be the 
work of some teaching, much study and more practice. 

My purpose, in dwelling upon this almost universal 
neglect of the arts of speaking and reading by those 
whose fortunes depend upon the right use of their tongues, 
is bo prevent you, if I can, from falling into the same 
fashion, and trusting your success to chance, in the 



II. OBJECTS, USES AND ADVANTAGES. 13 

fallacious belief that you are following nature. If any 
doubt can linger in your mind whether nature is all- 
sufficient for the purpose of oratory, I need but point to 
the wonderful lack of it — to the bad reading in the 
Pulpit, and the bad speaking at the Bar, in Parliament 
and at public meetings. It is possible that education 
might not remove the reproach ; but it is certain that 
the present system does not succeed in creating or 
cultivating oratory. It will, at least, be worth while to 
attempt improvement ; the effort cannot wholly fail, for, 
if nothing more, it will certainly make better readers of 
those who now read so badly. 

The object is worth the effort. Apart from profes- 
sional advantages, the art of speaking is the surest path to 
the gratification of your very laudable ambition to take 
part in the political and social life of your generation. 
In all countries and in all ages the orator has risen to 
distinction. But his art is nowhere so potent as in free 
countries, where liberty of speech is the birthright of 
the citizen. Wherever self-government is recognised, 
there must be gatherings for the purpose of transacting 
public business ; men must meet together in their 
parishes, their counties, or by whatever name the 
subdivisions of their country may be known. They 
could not discuss the business of the meeting without 
some speaking, and the most pleasant speaker will 
assuredly win the ears, and therefore carry with him the 
feelings and the votes, of those who cannot speak. The 
same result is seen in all assemblies, from the vestry, 
which is the Parliament of the parish, to the House of 
Commons, which is the Parliament of the nation. A 
man who cannot speak is there doomed to insignificance ; 
a man who can speak but badly is still somebody ; the 



14 THE ARTS OF WRITING, READING AND SPEAKING. 

man who speaks tolerably is a man of mark ; the man 
who speaks well at once establishes himself as a chieftain, 
and he holds in his hand the power of the whole assembly. 
Seeing, then, what a valuable accomplishment is the Art 
of Speaking — how surely it will lead to power, possibly 
to greatness, certainly to fame, and probably to profit, 
— the marvel is that it is not more cultivated in this 
country. In truth, it can scarcely be said to be 
cultivated at all. How is this ? Is it that Englishmen 
are unconscious of its value, or that they think it a gift 
bestowed by nature, which art cannot produce and 
can do little to perfect ? I cannot tell j but there the 
fact is. In our homes, in our schools, no pains are 
taken to teach young persons to speak or even 
to read ; and he who cannot read well will not speak 
well. Parents and guardians cheerfully expend large 
sums for the teaching of music or drawing — whether a 
natural taste for it does or does not exist — accom- 
plishments which only the gifted are likely to turn to good 
account in after life, and for the exercise of which there 
is seldom a demand ; while the arts of reading and of 
speaking — the former daily in request, and the latter 
leading to success in life through many paths — are 
entirely neglected, or, if recognised at all, imperfectly 
taught by a lesson of half-an-hour in a week, or got up 
for the occasion of a show-off on those dreary days when 
the schoolmasters advertise themselves under pretence 
of exhibiting the abilities of their pupils. 



15 



Letter III. 

THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE ART OF SPEAKING. 

The proverb Poeta nascitur, §c, has been extended to 
the Orator. It is only partially true as applied to either. 
There is no such thing as a born Poet or a born Orator. 
No man can write a good poem or make a good speech 
by the mere force of untaught nature ; he must go 
through more or less of training to accomplish either. 
We have heard a great deal of uneducated poets ; but 
this does not mean that they were able to scribble poetry 
when first putting their pens to paper. They were 
not zmeducated poets, but only se//*-educated poets. If 
they had been trained to no other knowledge or accom- 
plishment, they had trained themselves industriously to 
this. On the other hand, it is no less true that the Poet 
and the Orator must be endowed by nature with certain 
faculties, wanting which neither could achieve greatness. 
But there is this notable distinction between them, that 
inferiority, or even mediocrity, in a Poet renders his accom- 
plishment uninteresting to others and almost useless to 
himself, whereas very small powers of oratory are highly 
useful to the possessor. Of this you may be assured, 



16 THE ARTS OF WRITING, READING AND SPEAKING. 

that, whatever the degree of capacity for oratory with 
which you may have been endowed by nature, you will 
never attain to proficiency in it without much training. 

Doubtless you have shared the sort of hazy notion 
floating in the public mind, that if you can only pro- 
nounce the words properly you can read ; that if you 
have words you can speak ; and that words will come,, 
when they are wanted for a speech, as readily as they 
come in a tete-a-tete, I suspect you have formed no 
conception of the number and variety of the qualifi- 
cations essential to good writing, right reading and 
effective speaking ; how, for reading, the mind must be 
cultivated to understand, the feelings to give expression, 
the voice to utter correctly, the taste to impart tone to 
the entire exercise ; and, for speaking, how the intellect 
must be trained to a rapid flow of ideas, the instanta- 
neous composition of sentences, with the right words in 
the right places wherewith to clothe the thoughts, the 
voice attuned to harmony and the limbs trained to graceful 
action, so that the audience may listen with pleasure, 
while their convictions are carried, their feelings 
touched and their sympathies enlisted. 

I hope you will thoroughly understand that it is not 
my purpose, in these letters, to play the part of a pro- 
fessor and teach you to write, read and speak, but 
only to put you in the way to teach yourself. My design 
is to impress upon you the absolute necessity for a 
formal study of the kindred Arts of Writing, Eeading 
and Speaking, if you would attain to such a mastery of 
them as will be required in your Profession, and to point 
out to you the paths by which they are to be sought. 
And I must repeat, in my own justification for making 
the attempt, that there is a very great difference indeed 



III. FOUNDATIONS OF THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



17 



between knowledge and action. A man may well know 
precisely what should be done, and how it should be 
done, and even be enabled to impart that knowledge to 
others, without being able to do it. That is precisely 
my position. By devoting to the subject a great deal of 
time and thought, I have been enabled to learn some- 
thing of what a writer, a reader and a speaker should do 
and should not do, what qualifications are required for 
each, and how their arts may be best cultivated and 
attained, but without ability perfectly to perform them 
myself ; therefore it is that these letters propose 
nothing more than to convey to you, in a short time, the 
information that it has taken me a long time to collect. 

A perfect speaker would be almost a perfect man, so 
that there never was, and never will be, a perfect Orator. 
The best does but approach the standard of ideal 
excellence. Such great gifts of mind and body must 
combine to constitute an Orator that, when I detail them, 
you will cease to wonder that great orators are so few. 
I will first sketch the mental qualifications, for these, or 
some of them, are absolutely indispensable, and their 
presence will go far to compensate for the absence of 
many physical advantages. 

The foremost care of a speaker is, to have something to 
say ; his next is, to say it ; and his third is, to sit down 
when he has said it. These may appear to you very 
commonplace requirements, and you will probably think 
that I needed not have taken the trouble to write long 
letters to you to tell you this. But in fact, like other 
golden rules, they are more easy to remember than to 
observe. Consult your own experience, and say how 
many of all the speeches you have ever heard, on any 
occasion whatever, gave utterance to thoughts, to ideas, 



18 THE AETS OF WRITING, READING AND SPEAKING. 

to aught that painted a picture on your mind, influenced 
your judgment, or kindled your emotions. Were they 
not mere sounding brass and tinkling cymbals, sentences 
"full of sound and fury, signifying nothing," or words 
that scarcely fell at all into sentences, insomuch that, 
when the speaker had concluded, you could not very 
distinctly say what he had been talking about ? And 
if this sort of speaker so abounds, how much more 
frequent still are they who never know when they have 
done, and how to sit down, having said what they desired 
to say. How many men, who are otherwise really respect- 
able speakers, fail in this faculty of sitting down, are 
continually coming to a close and then beginning again, 
and when you mentally exclaim, "He is certainly going 
to finish now," start off on a new topic, or repeat the 
thrice-told tale, and take a new lease of your ears, to the 
severe trial of your patience. 

The first qualification for attainment of the art of 
speaking is, therefore, having something to say — by 
which I mean, that you must have in your mind definite 
thoughts to which you desire to give expression in words. 
Wanting these, it is useless to attempt to be a speaker. 
Thoughts will not come just when you are pleased to 
call for them. It is necessary that you should cultivate 
a habit of thinking clearly and continuously — of thinking, 
too, your own thoughts — and you must do this, not by 
vague fancies, but by trains of ideas logically arranged, 
and by accustoming yourself to think a subject through, 
instead of merely thinking vaguely about it. 

For what is a speech but thinking aloud ? You pursue 
a train of thought, and, by putting it into words you 
seek to conduct the minds of your audience through the 
same train of thought to the same conclusion, and thus 



III. FOUNDATIONS OF THE ART OF SPEAKING. 19 

to make them share your emotions or convictions. To 
this end the aptest thoughts are nothing, unless they can 
be expressed in words as apt. This is an art ; this does 
not come by nature. Nature contributes something to 
it by certain special capacities with which she favours a 
few, and she sometimes sets a ban upon others by 
positive incapacity to think consecutively, to find words 
readily, or to give them utterance in a pleasing manner. 
But even the most favoured by nature require sedulous 
cultivation of their faculties. Thought can only come 
from much observation, much reading and much reflection. 
Composition — by which I mean the choice of the fittest 
words, and the arrangement of them in the most correct 
and graceful sentences — can be mastered only by long 
study and much practice. Every man who aspires to be 
a speaker must laboriously learn the art of composition, 
for that is the second stone of the edifice, 

I can give you no instructions for obtaining thoughts ; 
they must arise from the natural or acquired activity of 
your mind, gathering ideas from all accessible stores. 
You must keep your eyes and ears ever open to receive 
all kinds of knowledge from all sorts of sources. Your 
information cannot be too diversified. Observation will 
supply the most useful materials ; reading, the most 
various ; reflection, the most profound. But you must 
be something more than a mere recipient of impressions 
from without ; these must be intimately revolved and 
recombined in your hours of reflection, and then they 
may be reproduced in other shapes as your own thoughts. 
Accustom yourself to think, and give yourself time to 
think. There are many portions of the day which can 
be devoted to reflection, without trying to make thought 
a business. If a man tells me that he habitually closes 



20 THE ARTS OF WRITING, READING AND SPEAKING. 

his book, or lays down his pen, turns his face to the fire 
with his feet upon the fender, and throws himself back 
in his easy chair to think, he may say that he is 
thinking, and perhaps flatter himself with the belief 
that he is thinking ; but I know better — he is only 
dreaming. The time for real reflection is when you are 
taking that exercise in the open air, which I trust you 
never neglect, and which is as needful to the accomplish- 
ment of a speaker as any other training. At such 
seasons, prepare yourself by reflection for that which is 
the next process in the acquisition of the art. 

And that is, writing. You must habitually place 
your thoughts upon paper, first, that you may do so 
rapidly ; and secondly, that you may do so correctly. 
When you come to set down your reflections upon paper, 
you will be surprised to find how loose and inaccurate 
they have been, what terrible flaws there are in your 
arguments. You are thus enabled to correct them, and 
to compare the matured sentence with the rude vision 
of it. You are thus trained to weigh your words and 
assure yourself that they precisely embody the idea you 
desire to convey. You can trace uncouthness of the 
sentences, and dislocations of thought, of which you had 
not been conscious before. It is far better to learn your 
lesson thus upon paper, which you can throw into the fire 
unknown to any human being, than to be taught it, in 
the presence of the public, by an audience who are not 
always very lenient critics. 



21 



Letter IV. 

FIRST LESSONS IN THE ART OF WRITING, 

Diligently practise Composition — that is to say, the 
correct and pleasing expression of your thoughts in words. 
I do not mean that you should begin by writing a speech 
— that conies at the end of your training ; but learn 
first to frame a neat sentence in apt language. Indeed, 
when you have achieved this, you are almost at the end 
of your labours. Simple as it seems, here lies all the 
difficulty. Words ; sentences. Who has not words ? 
you say. Who does not talk in sentences ? I answer by 
another question ; who does ? Try it. You are, I believe, 
unpractised as yet in composition, beyond the writing of 
a love-letter in bad English, or verses in worse Latin. 
Take your pen and put down upon paper the first half- 
dozen reflections that come into your mind — no matter 
what "the subject. Now read what you have written. 
First, examine the words — do they express precisely 
what you mean to say ? Are they fit words, expressive 
words — in brief, the right words ? You must confess 
that they are not. Some are altogether wrong ; some 
are vague, some weak, some out of keeping with the 



22 



THE ART OF WRITING. 



subject, some slovenly, some too big, others too small ; 
strong adjectives are used as props to feeble nouns ; and 
do you not see how continually you use three words to 
clothe an idea which would have been far more 
effectively conveyed in one ? 

Then look at your sentences, how rude they are, how 
shapeless, how they dislocate the thoughts they are 
designed to embody, how they vex the tongue to speak, 
and grate upon the ear that listens. There is no music, 
no rhythm, no natural sequence of ideas, scarcely even 
correct grammar. And mark how the sentences are 
thrown together without order, severing the chain of 
thought, this one having little connection with its 
predecessor, and none at all with its successor. 

Are you satisfied now that composition is an art, to be 
learned by labour and self -training, and that it is not so 
easy as talking in a smoking-room, with a short pipe to 
fill up the vacuities in thoughts and words ? 

Being assured of this by experiment, you will probably 
feel rather more inclined to make the necessary exertions 
to acquire an art which must be the foundation of your 
studies in the art of speaking, and after this manner may 
you proceed with your task. 

Be content, for a time, with writing down the thoughts 
of others, and this for a special purpose that will 
presently be apparent. 

Take a writer of good English — -Swift, Addison, 
Dryden, Macaulay, Oobbett, or even leading articles of the 
Times (usually models of pure, nervous English) — and 
read half a page twice or thrice ; close the book and 
write, in your own words, what you have read ; borrowing, 
nevertheless, so much as you can remember from the 
author. Compare what you have written with the 



IV. FIEST LESSONS. 



23 



original, sentence by sentence, and word by word, and 
observe how far you have fallen short of the skilful author. 
You will thus not only find out your faults, but you will 
take the measure of them, and discover where they lie, 
and how they may be mended. Eepeat the lesson with 
the same passages twice or thrice, if your memory is not 
filled with the words of the author, and observe, at each 
trial, the progress you have made, not merely by com- 
parison with the original, but by comparison with the 
previous exercises. Do this day after day, changing 
your author for the purpose of varying the style, and 
continue to do so long after you have passed on to the 
second and more advanced stages of your training. Pre- 
serve all your exercises, and occasionally compare the 
latest with the earliest, and so measure your progress 
periodically. 

In this first lesson I pray you to give especial attention 
to the words? which, to my mind, are of greater 
importance than the sentences. Take your nouns first, 
and compare them with the nouns used by your author. 
You will probably find your words to be very much 
bigger than his, more sounding, more far-fetched, more 
classical, or more poetical. All young writers and 
speakers fancy that they cannot sufficiently revel in fine 
words. Comparison with the great masters of English 
will rebuke this pomposity of inexperience, and chasten 
your aspirations after magniloquence. You will dis- 
cover, to your surprise, that our best writers eschew 
big words and abhor fine words. Where there is a 
choice, they prefer the pure, plain, simple English noun 
— the name by which the thing is known to all their 
countrymen and which, therefore, is instantly understood 
by every audience. These great authors call a spade " a 



24 



THE ART OF WRITING. 



spade ;" only small scribblers or penny-a-liners term it 
" an implement of husbandry." If there is a choice of 
names, good writers prefer the homeliest, while you select 
the most uncommon, supposing that you have thus avoided 
vulgarity. The example of the masters of the English 
tongue should teach you that common-ness (if I may be 
allowed to coin a word to express that for which I can 
find no precise equivalent) and vulgarity are not the same 
in substance. Vulgarity is shown in assumption and 
affectation of language quite as much as in dress and 
manners, and it is never vulgar to be natural. Your 
object is to be understood. You will be required to 
address all sorts and conditions of men ; to be successful, 
you must write and talk in a language that all classes of 
your countrymen can understand ; and such is the natural 
vigor, picturesqueness and music of our tongue, that 
you could not possess yourself of a more powerful 
instrument for oratory. It is well for you to be assured 
that, while by this choice of homely English for the 
expression of your thoughts you secure the ears of the 
common people, you will at the same time please the 
most highly educated and refined. The words that have 
won the applause of a mob at an election are equally 
successful in securing a hearing in the House of Commons, 
provided that the thoughts expressed and the manner of 
their expression be adapted to the changed audience. 

Then for the sentences. Look closely at their construc- 
tion, comparing it with that of your author ; I mean, 
note how you have put your words together. The best 
way to do this is to write two or three sentences from 
the book and interline your own sentences, word by word, 
as nearly as you can, and then you will discover what are 
your faults in the arrangement of your words. The 



IT. FIRST LESSONS. 



25 



placing of words is next in importance to the choice of 
them. The best writers preserve the natural order of 
thought. They sedulously shun obscurities and perplex- 
ities. They avoid long and involved sentences. Their 
rule is, that one sentence should express one thought, 
and they will not venture on the introduction of two or 
three thoughts, if they can help it. Undoubtedly this 
is often extremely difficult ; sometimes impossible. If 
you want to qualify an assertion, you must do so on the 
instant ; but the rule should never be forgotten, that a 
long and involved sentence is to be avoided, wherever it 
is practicable to do so. 

There is another lesson you will doubtless learn from the 
comparison of your composition with that of your model 
author. You will see a wonderful number of adjectives 
in your own writing, and very few in his. It is the 
besetting sin of young writers to indulge in adjectives, 
and precisely as a man gains experience do his adjectives 
diminish in number. It seems to be supposed by all 
unpractised scribblers — and it is a fixed creed with the 
penny-a-lining class — that the multiplication of epithets 
gives force. The nouns are never left to speak for them- 
selves. It is curious to take up any newspaper and read 
the paragraphs of news, especially if they are clipped 
from a provincial journal, or supplied by a penny-a-liner : 
or to open the books of nine-tenths of our authors of 
the third and downward ranks. You will rarely see a 
noun standing alone, without one or more adjectives 
prefixed. Be assured that this is a mistake. An adjective 
should never be used unless it is essential to correct 
description. As a general rule, adjectives add little 
strength to the noun they are set to prop, and a 
multiplication of them is always enfeebling. The vast 

c * 



26 



THE ART OF WRITING. 



majority of nouns convey to the mind a much more 
accurate picture of the thing they signify than you can 
possibly paint by attaching epithets to them. A river is 
not improved by being described as " flowing the sun 
by being called " the glorious orb of day the moon by 
being styled "gentle;" or a hero by being termed 
" gallant." Pray you avoid it. 

When you have repeated this lesson many times and 
find that you can write with some approach to the purity 
of your author, you should attempt an original composi- 
tion, In the beginning, it would be prudent, perhaps, to 
borrow the ideas, but to put them into your own 
language. The difficulty of this consists in the tendency 
of the mind to mistake memory for invention, and thus > 
unconsciously, to copy the language as well as the 
thoughts of the author. The best way to avoid this is 
to translate poetry into prose ; to take, for instance, a 
page of narrative in verse and relate the same story in 
plain prose ; or to peruse a page of didactic poetry, and 
set down the argument in a plain unpoetical fashion, 
This will make you familiar with the art of composition, 
only to be acquired by practice ; and the advantage, at 
this early stage of your education in the arts of writing 
and speaking, of putting into proper language the 
thoughts of others rather than your own is that 
you are better able to discover your faults. Your 
fatherly love for your own ideas is such that you are 
really incompetent to form a judgment of their worth, 
or of the correctness of the language in which they are 
embodied. The critics see this hallucination every day. 
Books continually come to them, written by men who 
are not mad, who probably are sufficiently sensible in the 
ordinary business of life, who see clearly enough 



IV. FIRST LESSONS. 



27 



the faults of other books, who would have laughed 
aloud over the same pages, if placed in their hands by 
another writer, but who, nevertheless, are utterly unable 
to recognise the absurdities of their own handiwork. The 
reader is surprised that any man of common intelligence 
could indite such a maze of nonsense, where the right 
word is never to be found in its right place, and this 
with such utter unconsciousness of incapacity on the 
part of the author. Still more is he amazed that, even 
if a sensible man could so write, a sane man could read 
that composition in print and not with shame throw it 
into the fire. But the explanation is, that the writer knew 
what he intended to say — his mind is full of that, and 
he reads from the MS. or the type, not so much what 
is there set down, as what was already floating in his 
own mind. To criticise yourself you must, to some extent, 
forget yourself. This is impracticable to many persons, 
and lest it may be so with you, I advise you to begin by 
putting the thoughts of others into your own language 
before you attempt to give formal expression to your 
own thoughts. 



28 



Letter V. 

READING AND THINKING. 

Having accustomed yourself to express, in plain words, 
and in clear, precise and straightforward sentences, the 
ideas of others, you should proceed to express your own 
thoughts in the same fashion. You will now see more 
distinctly the advantage of having first studied composi- 
tion by the process recommended in my last letter, for 
you are in a condition to discover the deficiences in the 
flow of your own ideas. You will be surprised to find, 
when you come to put them into words, how many of 
your thoughts were shapeless, hazy and dreamy, slipping 
from your grasp when you try to seize them, resolving 
themselves, like the witches in Macbeth, 

Into the air : and what seemed corporal melted 
As breath into the wind. 

Arguments that seemed conclusive in contempla- 
tion, when translated into language, are seen to be 
absurdly illogical ; and brilliant flashes of poetry, that had 
streamed through your imagination in the delightful 
promise of " the all hail hereafter," positively refuse to 
be embodied in words and disappear the moment you 
attempt to make prisoners of them. 



V. READING AND THINKING. 



Thus, after you have learned how to write, you will 
need a long and laborious education before you will 
learn what to write. I cannot much assist you in this part 
of the business. Two words convey the whole lesson — 
Read and think. What should you read ? Everything. 
What think about ? All subjects that present them- 
selves. An orator must be a man of very varied 
knowledge. Indeed, for all the purposes of practical 
life, you cannot know too much. No learning is quite 
useless. I can say, for my own part, that everything I 
took the trouble to acquire in youth I have found to 
come to use at some season in after life. But a speaker, 
especially if an Advocate, cannot anticipate the subjects 
on which he may be required to talk. Law is the least 
part of his discourse. For once that he is called upon 
to argue a point of law, he is compelled to treat matters 
of fact twenty times. And the range of topics is encyclo- 
paedic ; it embraces science and art, history and phi- 
losophy ; above all, the knowledge of human nature 
that teaches how the mind he addresses is to be con- 
vinced and persuaded, and how a willing ear is to be 
won to his discourse. No limited range of reading will 
suffice for so large a requirement. The elements of the 
sciences must be mastered ; the foundations of phi- 
losophy must be learned ; the principles of art must 
be acquired ; the broad facts of history must be 
stamped upon the memory ; poetry and fiction must not 
be neglected. You must cultivate frequent and intimate 
intercourse with the genius of all ages and of all countries 
— not merely as standards by which to measure your 
own progress, or as fountains from which you may draw 
unlimited ideas for your own use, but because they are 
peculiarly suggesti ve. This is the characteristic of genius, 



30 



THE AET OF WKITING. 



that, conveying one thought to the reader's mind, it 
kindles in him many other thoughts. The value of this 
to the speaker and writer will be obvious to you. Never, 
therefore, permit a day to pass without reading more or 
less — if it be but a single page- — from some one of our 
great writers. Besides the service I have described in 
the multiplication of your ideas, it will render you the 
scarcely lesser service of preserving purity of style and 
language and preventing you from falling into the 
conventional affectations and slang of social dialogue. 
For the same reason, without reference to any higher 
motive, but simply to fill your mind with the purest 
English, read daily some portion of the Bible ; for which 
exercise there is another reason also, that its phraseology 
is more familiar to all kinds of audiences than any other, 
is more readily understood, and therefore is more efficient 
in securing their attention. 

Your reading will thus consist of three kinds : reading 
for knowledge, by which I mean the storing of your 
memory with facts ; reading for thoughts, by which I 
mean the ideas and reflections that set your own mind 
thinking ; and reading for words, by which I mean the 
best language in which the best authors have clothed 
their thoughts. And these three classes of reading 
should be pursued together daily, more or less as you 
can, for they are needful each to the others and neither 
can be neglected without injury to the rest. 

So also you must make it a business to think. You 
will probably say that you are always thinking when you 
are not doing anything, and often when you are busiest. 
True, the mind is active, but wandering vaguely from 
topic to topic. You are not really thinking out any- 
thing ; indeed, you cannot be sure that your thoughts 



V, READING AND THINKING, 



31 



have a shape until you try to express them in words, 
Nevertheless you must think before you can write or 
speak, and you should cultivate a habit of thinking at all 
appropriate seasons. But do not misunderstand this 
suggestion. I do not design advising you to set 
yourself a-thinking as you would take up a book to read 
at the intervals of business, or as part of a course of 
self -training, for such attempts would probably begin 
with wandering fancies, and end in a comfortable nap. 
It is a fact worth noting, that few persons can think 
continuously while the body is at perfect rest. The time 
for thinking is that when you are kept awake by some 
slight and almost mechanical muscular exercise, and the 
mind is not busily attracted by external subjects of 
attention. Thus walking, angling, gardening, and other 
rural pursuits, are pre-eminently the seasons for thought, 
and you should cultivate a habit of thinking during those 
exercises, so needful for health of body and for fruitfulness 
of mind. Then it is that you should submit whatever 
subject you desire to treat about to careful review, turn- 
ing it on all sides, and inside out, marshalling the facts 
connected with it, trying what may be said for or against 
every view of it, recalling what you may have read about 
it, and finally thinking what you could say upon it that 
had not been said before, or how you could put old views 
of it into new shapes. Perhaps the best way to accom- 
plish this will be to imagine yourself writing upon it, or 
making a speech upon it, and to think what in such 
case you would say ; I do not mean in what words you 
would express yourself, but what you would discourse 
about ; what ideas you would put forth ; to what 
thoughts you would give utterance. At the beginning 
of this exercise, you will find your reflections extremely 



32 



THE ART OF WRITING. 



vague and disconnected, you will range from theme to 
theme, and mere nights of fancy will be substituted for 
steady, continuous thought. But persevere day by day, 
and that which was in the beginning an effort will soon 
grow into a habit, and you will pass few moments of 
your working life in which, when not occupied from 
without, your mind will not be usefully employed within 
itself. 

Having attained this habit of thinking, let it be a 
rule with you, before you write or speak on any subject, 
to employ your thoughts upon it in the manner I have 
described. Go a-fishing. Take a walk. Weed your 
garden. While so occupied, think. It will be hard if 
your own intelligence cannot suggest to you how the 
subject should be treated, in what order of argument, 
with what illustrations, and with what new aspects of 
it, the original product of your own genius. At all 
events this is certain, that without preliminary reflection 
you cannot hope to deal with any subject to your own 
satisfaction, or to the profit or pleasure of others. If 
you neglect these precautions, you can never be more 
than a windbag, uttering words that, however grandly 
they may roll, convey no thoughts. There is hope for 
ignorance ; there is none for emptiness. 

To sum up the exhortations of this letter. To become 
a writer, or an orator, you must fill your mind with 
knowledge by reading and observation, and educate it to 
the creation of thoughts by cultivating a habit of 
reflection. There is no limit to the knowledge that will 
be desirable and useful ; it should include something of 
natural science, much of history, and still more of 
human nature. The quicquid agunt homines must be 
your study, for it is with these that the speaker has to 



V. BEADING AND THINKING. 33 

deal. Eemember, that no amount of antiquarian, 
or historical, or scientific, or literary, lore will make an 
orator, without intimate acquaintance with the ways of 
the world about him, with the tastes, sentiments, passions, 
emotions and modes of thought of the men and women 
of the age in which he lives, and whose minds it is his 
business to sway. An orator must be most of all a man 
of the world ; but he must be accomplished also with 
the various acquirements which I have here endeavoured 
briefly to sketch. 



c 3 



34 



Letter VI. 

STYLE, 

You must think, that you may have thoughts to 
convey ; and read, that you may possess words where- 
with to express your thoughts correctly and gracefully, 
But something more than this is required to qualify you 
to write or speak. You must have a style. I will 
endeavour to explain what I mean by that. 

Style is not art, like language — it is a gift of nature, 
like the form and the features. It does not lie in words, 
or phrases, or figures of speech ; it cannot be taught by 
any rules ; it is not to be learned by examples. As 
every man has a manner of his own, differing from the 
manner of every other man, so has every mind its own 
fashion of communicating with other minds. The dress- 
in which our thoughts clothe themselves is unconsciously 
moulded to the individualities of the mind whence they 
come. 

This manner of expressing thought is style, and there- 
fore may style be described as the feature of the mind 
displayed in its communications with other minds ; as 
manner is the corporeal feature exhibited in personal 
communication. 



VI. STYLE. 



35 h 



But, though style is the gift of nature, it is neverthe- 
less to be cultivated ; only in a sense different from that 
commonly understood by the word cultivation. 

Many elaborate treatises have been written on style, and 
the subject usually occupies a prominent place in all books 
on writing and oratory. It is usual with such teachers 
to be emphatic on the importance of cultivating style, 
and they proceed to prescribe ingenious recipes for pro- 
ducing it. All these proceed upon the assumption that 
style is something artificial, capable of being taught, 
and which should be learned by the student, like spelling 
or grammar. But if the definition of style which I 
have submitted to you is right, these elaborate trainings 
are a needless labour — probably a positive mischief. I 
do not design to say that a style might not be taught to 
you ; but it will be the style of some other man and 
not your own ; and not being your own, it will no more 
fit your mind than a second-hand suit of clothes, bought 
without measurement at a pawnshop, would fit your body, 
and your appearance in it will be as ungainly. But 
you must not gather from this that you have nothing 
to -do with style ; that it may be left to take care of 
itself, and that it will suffice for you to write or speak 
as untrained nature prompts. I say that you must 
cultivate style ; but I say also that the style to be 
cultivated should be your own, and not the style of 
another. Most of those who have written upon the 
subject recommend you to study the styles of the great 
writers of the English language, with a view to the 
learning of their accomplishment. So I say — study 
them, by all means ; but not for the purpose of imita- 
tion, not with a view to acquire their manner, but to 
learn their language, to see how they have embodied their 



56 



THE ART OF WRITING, 



thoughts in words, to discover the manifold graces with 
which they have invested the communication of their 
thoughts, so as to surround the act of communicating 
information, or kindling emotion, with the various 
attractions and charms of art. 

I say to you, cultivate style ; but instead of labouring 
to acquire the style of your model, it should be your most 
constant endeavour to avoid it. The greatest danger 
to which you are exposed is that of falling into an imita- 
tion of the manner of some favourite author whom you 
have studied for the sake of learning a style which, if you 
did learn, would only be unbecoming to you, because not 
your own. That which in him was manner becomes in 
you mannerism; you but dress yourself in his clothes, 
and imagine that you are like him, while you are no 
more like than is the valet to his master, whose cast-off 
coat he is wearing. There are some authors whose 
manner is so infectious that it is extremely difficult not 
to catch it. Johnson is one of these ; it requires an effort 
not to fall into his formula of speech. But your protection 
must be an ever-present conviction that your own style 
will be the best for you, be it ever so bad or good. You 
must strive to be yourself, to think for yourself, to speak 
in your own manner ; then what you say, and your style 
of saying it, will be in perfect accord, and the pleasure 
of those who read or listen will not be disturbed by a 
sense of impropriety and unfitness. 

Nevertheless I repeat, you should cultivate your own 
style, not by changing it into some other person's style, 
but by striving to preserve its individuality, while 
decorating it with all the graces of art. Nature gives 
the style, for your style is yourself ; but the decorations 
are slowly and laboriously acquired by diligent study. 



VI. STYLE. 



37 



and above all, by long and patient practice. There are 
but two methods of attaining to this accomplishment — 
contemplation of the best productions of the art, and 
continuous toil in the practice of it. I assume that, by 
the process I have already described, you have acquired 
a tolerably quick flow of ideas, a ready command of 
words and ability to construct sentences of good 
grammar ; all that now remains to you is to learn 
so to use this knowledge that the result may be 
presented in the most attractive shape to those whom 
you address. I am unable to give you many practical 
hints towards this, because it is not a thing to be 
acquired by formal rules, in a few lessons and by a set 
course of study ; it is the product of very wide and 
long-continued gleanings from a countless variety of 
sources ; but, above all, it is taught by experience. If 
you compare your compositions at intervals of six months, 
you will see the progress you have made. You 
began with a great multitude of words, with big nouns 
and bigger adjectives, a perfect firework of epithets and 
a tendency to call everything by something else than its 
proper name, and the longer the periphrasis the more 
you admired your own ingenuity and thought that 
your readers must equally admire it. If you had a good 
idea, you were pretty sure to dilute it by expansion, 
supposing all the while that you were improving by 
amplifying it. You indulged in small flights of 
poetry (in prose), not always in appropriate places, and 
you were tolerably sure to go off into rhapsody, and to 
mistake fine words for eloquence. This is the juvenile 
style ; it was not peculiar to yourself — it is the common 
fault of all young writers. But the cure for it may be 
hastened by judicious self -treatment. In addition to the 



38 



THE ART OF WRITING. 



study of good authors, to cultivate your taste, you may 
mend your style by a process of pruning, after the follow- 
ing fashion. Having finished your composition, or a 
section of it, lay it aside, and do not look at it again for 
a week, during which interval other labours will have 
engaged your thoughts. You will then be in a condition 
to revise it with an approach to critical impartiality, and 
so you will begin to learn the wholesome art of blotting. 
Go through it slowly, pen in hand, weighing every word, 
and asking yourself, " What did I intend to say ? How 
can I say it in the briefest and plainest English ?" 
Compare with the answer you return the form in which 
you had tried to express the same meaning in the writing 
before you, and at each word further ask yourself, " Does 
this word precisely convey my thought ? Is it the aptest 
word ? Is it a necessary word ? "Would my meaning be 
fully expressed without it ?" If it is not the best, change 
it for a better. If it is superfluous, ruthlessly strike it 
out. The work will be painful at first ; you will 
sacrifice with a sigh so many flourishes of fancy, so 
many figures of speech, of whose birth you were proud. 
Nay, at the beginning, and for a long time afterwards, 
your courage will fail you, and many a cherished phrase 
will be spared by your relenting pen. But be persistent, 
and you will triumph at last. Be not content with one 
act of expurgation. Bead the manuscript again, and, 
seeing how much it is improved, you will be inclined to 
blot a little more. Lay it aside for a, month, and then 
read again, and blot again as before. Nay, for the third 
time let it rest in your desk for six months, and then 
repeat the process. You will be amazed to find how 
differently you look at it now. The heat of composition 
having passed away, you are surprised that you could 



VI. STYLE. 



39 



have so written, mistaking that magniloquence for 
eloquence, that rhapsody for poetry, those many words 
for much thought, those heaped-up epithets for powerful 
description. 



> 



40 



Letter VII. 

LANGUAGE. 



Simplicity is the crowning achievement of judgment and 
good taste in their maturity. It is of very slow growth 
in the greatest minds ; by the multitude it is never 
acquired. The gradual progress towards it can be 
curiously traced in the works of the great masters of 
English composition, wheresoever the injudicious zeal of 
admirers has given to the world the juvenile writings 
which their own better taste had suffered to pass into 
oblivion. Lord Macaulay was an instance of this. Com- 
pare his latest with his earliest compositions, as collected 
in the posthumous volume of " Bemains," and the growth 
of improvement will be manifest. Yet, upon the first 
proposition of it, nothing could appear to be more 
obvious to remember, and easy to act upon, than 
the rule, " Say what you want to say in the fewest 
words that will express your meaning clearly ; and let 
those words be the plainest, the most common (not 
vulgar), and the most intelligible to the greatest number 
of persons." It is certain that a beginner will adopt 
the very reverse of this. He will say what he has to 



VII. LANGUAGE. 



41 



say in the greatest number of words he can devise, and 
those words will be the most artificial and uncommon his 
memory can recal. As he advances, he will learn to drop 
these long phrases and big words ; he will gradually 
contract his language to the limit of his thoughts, and 
he will discover, after long experience, that he was never 
so feeble as when he flattered himself that he was most 
forcible. 

I have dwelt upon this subject with repetitions that 
may be deemed almost wearisome, because affectations 
and conceits are the besetting sin of modern composition, 
and the vice is growing and spreading. The literature 
of our periodicals teems with it ; the magazines are 
infected by it almost as much as the newspapers, which 
have been always famous for it. Instead of an endeavour 
to write plainly, the express purpose of the writers in 
the periodicals is to write as obscurely as possible ; they 
make it a rule never to call anything by its proper name, 
never to say anything directly in plain English, never to 
express their true meaning, they delight to say some- 
thing quite different in appearance from that which 
they purpose to say, requiring the reader to translate it, 
if he can, and, if he cannot, leaving him in a state of 
bewilderment, or wholly uninformed. 

Worse models you could not find than those presented 
to you by the newspapers and periodicals ; yet are you 
so beset by them that it is extremely difficult not to 
catch the infection. Eeading day by day compositions 
teeming with bad taste, and especially where the cockney 
style floods you with its conceits and affectations, you 
unconsciously fall into the same vile habit, and incessant 
vigilance is required to restore you to sound, vigorous, 
manly, and wholesome English. I cannot recommend 



42 



THE AET OF WHITING. 



to you a better plan for counteracting the inevitable 
mischief than the daily reading of portions of some of 
our best writers of English. A page or two of Dryden, 
Swift or Cobbett, will operate as an antidote against the 
poison you cannot help absorbing in your necessary in- 
tercourse with the passing literature of the day. You 
will soon learn to appreciate the power and beauty of 
those simple sentences, compared with the forcible 
feebleness of some, and the spasmodic efforts and 
mountebank contortions of others, that meet your eye 
when you turn over the pages of magazine or newspaper. 
I do not say that you will at once become reconciled to 
plain English, after being accustomed to the tinsel and 
tin trumpets of modern writers ; but you will gradually 
come to like it more and more ; you will return to it 
with greater zest year by year ; and having thoroughly 
learned to love it, you will strive to follow the ex- 
ample of the authors who have written it. 

And this practice of daily commune more or less with 
one of the great masters of the English tongue should 
never be abandoned. So long as you have occasion to 
write or speak, let it be held by you almost as a duty. And 
here I would suggest that you should read them aloud ; 
for there is no doubt that the words, entering at once by 
the eye and the ear, are more sharply impressed upon the 
mind than when perused silently. Moreover, when reading 
aloud you read more slowly ; the full meaning of each 
word must be understood, that you may give the right 
expression to it, and the ear catches the general structure 
of the sentences more perfectly. Nor will this occupy 
much time. There is no need to devote to it more than 
a few minutes every day. Two or three pages thus read 
daily will suffice to preserve the purity of your taste. 



VII. LANGUAGE. 



48 



The books that have been written on the subject of 
composition usually set forth a number of rules profes- 
sing to teach the student specifically how he is to write 
a sentence. I confess I have no faith in the virtue of 
such teachings. I tried them and found them worse 
than worthless — much more a hindrance than a help. 
I found it to be impossible to think at once of what to 
say and the rules that were set to me how to say it. In 
fact, when we examine closely all these forms, we 
discover that they are not the rules that have been used 
as guides by their authors, or by any other persons, but 
only the principles philosophy has traced as governing 
the operations of the mind in the process of composi- 
tion, We do not so write because we ought to do so, 
according to certain set rules, but because the mind is 
so constructed as to express itself to another mind in 
certain forms of speech, which forms have been examined 
by philosophers, and their analysis of the mental opera- 
tion has been turned into a series of rules and called 
" grammar." 

Your first care in composition will be, of course, to 
express yourself grammatically, This is partly habit, 
partly teaching. If those with whom a child is brought 
up talk good grammar, he will do likewise, from mere 
imitation ; but he will learn quite as readily any bad 
grammar to which his ears may be accustomed ; and as 
the most fortunate of us mingle in childhood with servants 
and other persons not always observant of number, 
gender, mood and tense, and as even they who have 
enjoyed the best education fall, in familiar talk, into 
occasional faults of grammar, which could not be 
avoided without pedantry, you will find the study of 
grammar necessary to you under any circumstances, 



44 



THE ART OF WRITING. 



Your ear will teach you a great deal, and you may 
usually trust to it as a guide ; but sometimes occasions 
arise when you are puzzled to determine which is the 
correct form of expression, and in such cases there is 
safety only in reference to the rule. 

I would gladly assume that you learned at school all 
that you have need to know of grammar, but experience 
forbids. I remember how little attention was paid to 
the teaching of English grammar in the public and 
classical schools of my own boyhood ; and although 
some improvement has been made since, I fear that it 
would not be safe to enter upon the study of composi- 
tion without at least refreshing your memory with the 
rules of grammar. If you ask me what grammar you 
ought to study, I must admit my inability to give you a 
satisfactory answer. I have never seen an English 
grammar that quite came up to the conception of what 
such a book should be. All the popular ones are too 
dogmatical and not enough explanatory. They appear 
to have been written by men who had forgotten the pro- 
cess by which they had acquired their own knowledge, 
and who taught from their own advanced position, 
instead of taking the student's point of view and starting 
with him. Rules ought to be accompanied with the 
reasons for them, and those reasons should not be stated 
in the language of the learned, but in the words used by 
the unlearned world ; and the ideas they convey should 
not be those which assume that the listener knows a 
great deal, but such as would be addressed to a mind 
presumed to know very little indeed of the subject. 
However, such a grammar has never chanced to come to 
my notice among the multitude I have examined in the 
course of long labours as a reviewer. The best with which 



VII. LANGUAGE. 



45 



I am acquainted (and it approaches very nearly to the 
ideal of such a work) is that by William Cobbett. I do 
not know even if it can now be procured ; but if you can 
find a copy at any book-stall, buy it and read it. Not 
only does it present its information in a singularly 
intelligible form, but it will amuse and fix your atten- 
tion by the quaintness of some of its illustrations. For 
instance, the author, who was an avowed Eepublican — 
for he did not live to see democracy setting up despotism 
in France, and republicanism rushing into civil war in 
America — takes his illustrations of bad grammar from 
the Eoyal Speeches to Parliament. But, if you should 
not like his manner of teaching, you will assuredly profit 
by the perusal of his simple but vigorous English, and 
it will be in itself a valuable lesson to accustom your 
ears to our homely but expressive Saxon, unpolluted by 
the affectations with which it is too much the fashion of 
our day to deform the glorious instrument of thought 
that our fathers have transmitted to us. 



46 



Letter VIII. 

WORDS— SENTENCES— RHYTHM. 



When I recommend the study of grammar, I do not 
design that you should adhere pedantically to its rules. 
It is, indeed, necessary that you should know those rules, 
and the reasons for them, and how a sentence is to be 
grammatically constructed. But some latitude of discre- 
tion may be permitted in the application of those rules. 
Your good taste will, after a little experience, show you 
where they may be relaxed, and even, upon occasions, 
departed from. Certain it is that, if you were to 
compose an essay in strict compliance with the rules 
propounded by the grammarians, it would be painfully 
stiff and ungainly. On the other hand, in fear of a 
pedantic style, you must be careful not to fall into the 
opposite extreme of slovenliness and incorrectness. It 
is not necessary that you should always write precise 
grammar, but never must you write bad grammar. 
Between these extremes there lies a wide debateable land, 
recognised by custom, in which you may venture to 
turn out of the regular path in a manner which a 
pedagogue will tell you, and prove by reference to the 



Till. WORDS SENTENCES RHYTHM. 



47 



rules, to be wrong, but for which you may assert the 
privilege of practice. I cannot supply you with any tests 
whereby you may be guided in your acceptance of these 
conventionalisms. It is entirely a matter of taste, and 
the cultivation of the taste is the only means by which 
you can hope to write at once correctly and freely, not 
sinning against grammar, but also not a slave to it. 

So it is with the structure of your sentences. You 
will find in the books many elaborate rules for composi- 
tion. I do not say of them that they are wrong. I 
have no doubt that they are strictly true, as abstract 
propositions ; but I venture to assert that they are 
practically worthless. No man ever yet learned from 
them how to write a single sentence. No man keeps 
them in his mind while he is writing. No man delibe- 
rately observes them so far as to say, " I express myself 
thus, because rule the fourth tells me that I am to do so 
and so." After you have written, it is not uninteresting 
nor uninstructive to compare your composition with the 
rules, and see how far you have adhered to them or how 
widely diverged from them, tracing the reasons for the 
structure of the sentences you have actually adopted. 
This is a useful exercise for the mind ; it confirms your 
confidence in what you do well, and perhaps reveals to 
you some errors and shows you how they are to be 
amended. But this is ail. Your sentences will certainly 
. shape themselves after the structure of your own mind. 
If your thoughts are vivid and definite, so will be your 
language ; if dreamy and hazy, so will your composition 
be obscure. Your speech, whether oral or written, can 
be but the expression of yourself, and what you are 
that speech will be. 

Eemember 2 then, that you cannot materially change 



48 



THE AET OF WRITING. 



the substantial character of your writing ; but you may 
much improve the form of it by the observance of two 
or three general rules. 

In the first place, he sure you have something to 
say. This may appear to you a very unnecessary pre- 
caution, for who, you will ask, having nothing to say, 
desires to write or to speak ? I do not doubt that you 
have often felt as if your brain was teeming with thoughts 
too big for words ; but when you came to seize them, for 
the purpose of putting them into words, you have found 
them evading your grasp and melting into the air. 
They were not thoughts at all, but fancies — shadows 
which you had mistaken for substances, and whose 
vagueness you would never have detected, had you not 
sought to embody them in language. Hence it is that 
you will need to be assured that you have thoughts to 
express, before you try to express them. 

And how to do this ? By asking yourself, before you 
take up the pen, what it is you intend to say, and 
answering yourself as you best can, without caring 
for the form of expression. If it is only a vague and 
mystical idea, conceived in cloudland, you will try in 
vain to put it into any form of words, however rude, 
[f, however, it is a definite thought, proceed at once to 
set it down in words and fix it upon paper. 

The expression of a precise and definite thought is not 
difficult. Words will follow the thought ; indeed, they 
will usually accompany it, because it is almost impossible 
to think unless the thought is clothed in words. So 
closely are ideas and language linked by habit, that very 
few minds are capable of contemplating them apart, in- 
somuch that it may be safely asserted of all intellects, 
save the highest, that if they are unable to express their 



Vin. WORDS— SENTENCES RHYTHM. 49 

ideas, it is because the ideas are incapable of expression 
- — because they are vague and hazy. For the present 
purpose it will suffice that you put upon paper the 
substance of what you desire to say, in terms as rude as 
you please, the object being simply to measure your 
thoughts. If you cannot express them, do not attribute 
your failure to the weakness of language, but to the 
dreaminess of your ideas, and therefore banish them 
without mercy and direct your mind to some more 
definite object for its contemplations. If you succeed in 
putting your ideas into words, be they ever so rude, you 
will have learned the first, the most difficult, and the 
most important, lesson in the art of writing. The second 
is far easier. Having thoughts, and having embodied 
those thoughts in unpolished phrase, your next task will 
be to present them in the most attractive form.- To 
secure the attention of those to whom you desire to 
communicate your thoughts, it is not enough that you 
utter them in any words that come uppermost ; you 
must express them in the best words and in the most 
graceful sentences, so that they may be read with pleasure, 
or at least without offending the taste. 

Your first care in the choice of words will be that they 
shall express precisely your meaning. Words are 
used so loosely in society that the same word will often 
be found to convey half-a-dozen different ideas to as 
many auditors. Even where there is not a conflict of 
meanings in the same word, there is usually a choice of 
words having meanings sufficiently alike to be used in- 
discriminately, without subjecting the user to a charge 
of positive error. But the cultivated taste is shown in 
the selection of such as express the most delicate shades 
of difference. Therefore, it is not enough to have 

D 



50 



THE ART OF WRITING. 



abundance of words — you must learn the precise mean- 
ing of each word, and in what it differs from other 
words supposed to be synonymous ; and then you must 
select that which most exactly conveys the thought you 
are seeking to embody. I will not pretend to give you 
rules for this purpose — I am acquainted with none that 
are of much practical value. Some of the books profess 
to teach the pupil how to choose his words ; but for my 
own part, having tried these teachings, I found them 
worthless and others who have done the like have ex- 
perienced the same unsatisfactory result. There is but 
one way to fill your mind with words and that is, to 
read the best authors and to acquire an accurate 
knowledge of the precise meaning of their words — by 
parsing as you read. 

By the practice of parsing, I intend very nearly the 
process so called at schools, only limiting the exercise to 
the definitions of the principal words. As thus : — take, 
for instance, the sentence that immediately precedes this 
—ask yourself what is the meaning of "practice," of 
'•'parsing,'* of " process," and such like. Write the 
answer to each, that you may be assured that your 
definition is distinct. Compare it with the definitions of 
the same word in the dictionaries, and observe the 
various meanings in which it has been used. You 
will thus learn also the terms that have the same, 
or nearly the same, meaning, a large vocabulary of 
which is necessary to composition, for frequent repeti- 
tions of the same word, especially in the same sentence, 
is an inelegance, if not a positive error. Compare your 
definition with that of the lexicographer, and your use 
of the word with the uses of it by the authorities cited 
in the dictionary, and you will thus measure your own 



VIII. WORDS SENTENCES RHYTHM. 51 

progress in the science of words. This useful exercise 
may be made extremely amusing as well as instructive, 
if friends, having a like desire for self -improvement, will 
join you in the practice of it ; and I can assure you that 
an evening will be thus spent pleasantly as well as 
profitably. You may make a merry game of it — a game 
of speculation. Given a word : each one of the company 
in turn writes his definition of it ; Webster's Dictionary 
is then referred to, and that which comes nearest the 
authentic definition wins the honour or the prize. It 
may be a sweepstakes carried off by him whose definition 
hits the mark the most nearly. But, whether in 
company or alone, you should not omit the frequent 
practice of this exercise, for none will impart such a 
power of accurate expression and supply such an abund- 
ance of apt words wherein to embody the delicate hues 
and various shadings of thought. 

So with sentences or the combinations of words. 
Much skill is required for their construction. They 
must convey your meaning accurately, and as far as 
possible in the natural order of thought, and yet they 
must not be complex, involved, verbose, stiff, ungainly, 
or tautological. They must be brief, but not curt ; 
explicit, but not verbose. Here, again, good taste must 
be your guide, rather than rules which teachers propound, 
but which the pupil never follows. In truth, there is 
no rule for writing sentences. It is easy to say what 
may not be done, what are the besetting faults, and 
perhaps to offer some hints for their avoidance. But 
there are no rules by observing which you can write 
well ; for not only does every style require its own 
construction of a sentence, but almost every combination 
of thought will demand a different shape in the sentence 
d 2 



52 



THE ART OF WRITING. 



by which it is conveyed. A standard sentence, like 
a standard style, is a pedantic absurdity, and, if you 
would avoid it, you must not try to write by rule, though 
you may refer to rules in order to find out your faults 
after you have written. 

Lastly, inasmuch as your design is, not only to 
influence but to please, it will be necessary for you to 
cultivate what may be termed the graces of composition. 
It is not enough that you instruct the minds of your 
readers, you must gratify their taste and win their 
attention, imparting pleasure in the very process of 
imparting information. Hence you must make choice of 
words that convey no coarse meanings and excite no 
disagreeable associations. You are not to sacrifice ex- 
pression to elegauce ; but so, likewise, you are not to be 
content with a word or a sentence, if it is offensive or 
even unpleasing, merely because it does express your 
meaning. The precise boundary between refinement 
and rudeness cannot be defined ; your own cultivated 
taste must tell you the point at which power or 
explicitness is to be preferred to delicacy. One more 
caution I would impress upon you, that you pause and 
give careful consideration to it before you permit a 
coarse expression, on account of its correctness, to pass 
your critical review when you revise your manuscript, 
and again when you read the proof, if ever you rush 
into print. 

And much might be said also about the music of 
speech. Your words and sentences must be musical. 
They must not come harshly from the tongue, if uttered, 
or grate upon the ear, if heard. There is a rhythm in 
words which should be observed in all composition, 
written or oral. The perception of it is a natural gift, 



VIII. WORDS SENTENCES RHYTHM. 53 



but it may be much cultivated and improved by reading 
the works of the great masters of English, especially of 
the best poets — the most excellent of all in this wonder- 
ful melody of words being Alfred Tennyson. Perusal 
of his works will show you what you should strive to 
attain in this respect, even though it may not enable 
you fully to accomplish the object of your endeavour. 



54 



Letter IX. 

THE ART OF WRITING. 



The faculty for writing varies in various persons. Some 
write easily, some laboriously \ words flow from some pens 
without effort, others produce them slowly ; composition 
seems to come naturally to a few, and a few never can 
learn it, toil after it as they may. But whatever the 
natural power, of this be certain, that good writing 
cannot be accomplished without much study and long 
practice. Facility is far from being a proof of excellence. 
Many of the finest works in our language were written 
slowly and painfully ; the words changed again and again, 
and the structure of the sentences carefully cast and 
recast. There is a fatal facility that runs " in one weak, 
washy, everlasting flood" that is more hopeless than any 
slowness or slovenliness. If you find your pen galloping 
over the paper, take it as a warning of a fault to be 
shunned ; stay your hand, pause, reflect, read what you 
have written, see what are the thoughts you have set 
down and resolutely try to condense them. There is no 
more wearisome process than to write the same thing 
over again ; nevertheless it is a most efficient teaching. 



IX. THE ART OF WRITING. 



55 



Your endeavour should be to say the same things 
again, but to say them in a different form, to condense 
your thoughts, and express them in fewer words. 
Compare this second effort with the first, and you will 
at once measure your improvement. You cannot now 
do better than repeat the lesson twice more ; rewrite, 
still bearing steadily in mind your object, which is to say 
what you desire to utter in words the most apt, and 
in the briefest form consistent with intelligibility and 
grace. Having done this, take your last copy and strike 
out pitilessly every superfluous word, substitute a vigorous 
or expressive word for a weak one, sacrifice the adjectives 
without remorse, and when this work is done, rewrite 
the whole, as amended. 

And, if you would see what you have gained by this 
laborious but effective process, compare the completed 
essay with the first draft of it and you will recognise the 
superiority of careful composition over facile scribbling ; 
and you will be fortunate if you thus acquire more 
condensation and can succeed in putting reins upon that 
facility before it has grown into an unconquerable habit, 

Simplicity is the charm of writing, as of speech ; 
therefore, cultivate it with care. It is not the natural 
manner of expression, or, at least, there grows with great 
rapidity in all of us a tendency to an ornamental style of 
talking and writing. As soon as the child emerges from 
the imperfect phraseology of his first letters to papa, he 
sets himself earnestly to the task of trying to disguise 
what he has to say in some other words than such as 
plainly express his meaning and nothing more. To him 
it seems an object of ambition — a feat to be proud of — 
to go by the most indirect paths, instead of the straight 
way, and it is a triumph to give the person he addresses 



56 



THE ART OF WRITING. 



the task of interpreting his language, to find the true 
meaning lying under the apparent meaning. Circumlo- 
cution is not the invention of refinement and civilization, 
but the vice of the uncultivated ; it prevails the most 
with the young in years and in minds that never attain 
maturity. You cannot too much school yourself to avoid 
this tendency, if it has not already seized you, as is most 
probable, or to banish it, if infected by it. If you have 
any doubt of your condition in this respect, your better 
course will be to consult some judicious friend, conscious 
of the evil and competent to criticism. Submit to him 
some of your compositions, asking him to tell you candidly 
what are their faults and especially what are the circumlo- 
cutions in it and how the same thought might have been 
better, because more simply and plainly, expressed. 
Having studied his corrections, rewrite the article, striving 
to avoid those faults. Submit this again to your friendly 
censor and, if many faults are found still to linger, 
apply yourself to the labour of repetition once more. 
Repeat this process with new writings, until you produce 
them in a shape that requires few blottings, and having 
thus learned what to shun, you may venture on self 
reliance. 

But even when parted from your friendly critic, you 
should continue to be your own critic, revising every 
sentence, with resolute purpose to strike out every 
superfluous word and substitute an expressive word for 
every fine word. You will hesitate to blot many a pet 
phrase, of whose invention you felt proud at the moment 
of its birth ; but, if it is circumlocution, pass the pen 
through it ruthlessly, and by degrees you will train 
yourself to the crowning victory of art — simplicity. 

If you cannot find such a friendly critic, and the fit 



IX. THE ART OF WRITING, 



57 



are few, you may achieve the object by your own effort, 
though less speedily and perfectly. Take one of our 
writers of the purest English ; read a page ; write his 
thoughts in your own words ; compare your composition 
with his, mark line by line the differences, correct your 
writing from his texts, then repeat the task, bearing in 
memory the faults you had committed before and 
striving to avoid them ; this exercise often repeated will 
tutor you to write well ; but it is more laborious than 
learning from a teacher, and will demand a large 
measure of patience and perseverance. 

When you are writing on any subject, go to it directly. 
Come to the point as speedily as possible and do not 
walk round and round it, as if you were reluctant to 
grapple with it. There is so much to be read now-a- 
days that it is the duty of all who write to condense 
their thoughts and words. This cannot always be done 
in speaking, where slow minds must follow your faster 
lips ; but it is always practicable in writing, where the 
reader may move slowly, or repeat what he has not 
understood on the first passing of the eye over the 
words. 

In constructing your sentences, marshal the words in 
the order of thought — that is the natural, and there- 
fore the most intelligible, shape for language to assume. 
In conversation we do this instinctively, but in writing 
the rule is almost always set at defiance. The man who 
would tell you a story in a plain straightforward way could 
not write it without falling into utter confusion and 
placing almost every word precisely where it ought not 
to be. In learning to write, then, let this be your 
next care. Probably it will demand much toil at first in 
rewriting for the sake of redistributing your words ; 
D 3 



5^ 



THE ART OF WRITING. 



acquired habit of long standing will unconsciously mould 
your sentences to the accustomed shape ; but persevere 
and you will certainly succeed at last, and your words 
will express your thoughts precisely as you think them 
and as you desire that they should be impressed upon 
the minds of those to whom they are addressed. So 
with the sentences. Let each be complete in itself, 
embodying one proposition. Shun that tangled skein 
of sentences in which some writers involve themselves, 
to the perplexity of their readers and their own manifest 
bewilderment. When you find yourself falling into 
such a maze, halt and retrace your steps. Cancel what 
you have done and reflect what you design to say. Set 
clearly before your mind the ideas that you had begun 
to mingle, disentangle them, set them in orderly array 
and so express them in distinct sentences, where each 
will stand separate, but in its right relationship to all 
the rest. This exercise will improve, not only your skill 
in the art of writing, but also in the art of thinking, 
for those involved sentences are almost always the result 
of confused thoughts ; the resolve to write clearly will 
compel you to think clearly, and you will be surprised to 
discover how often thoughts, which had appeared to 
you most definite in contemplation, are found, when you 
come to set them upon paper, to be most incomplete and 
shadowy. 

These hints will, perhaps, suffice to give you aid in the 
Art of Writing, so far as it is a necessary introduction to 
the Art of Speaking, and that is all that I purpose to 
attempt in these letters. 



59 



Letter X. 

THE ART OF READING. 

I tuen now to the Art of Reading, for that also is a 
necessary introduction to the art of speaking, To be a 
successful speaker you must have something to say ; you 
must be able to clothe what you desire to say in the 
best language, and you must give utterance to that 
language in such manner as to win the ears of your 
audience. Books and reflection a,re required to supply 
thoughts ; composition, to enable you to put those 
thoughts into words ; reading, that you may express 
those words rightly. If you do all these well, you will 
be a great orator ; but it is not essential to success in 
speaking that you should attain proficiency in each of 
these acquirements. Many public speakers of great 
reputation fail in one or more of these ingredients in the 
accomplishing of a great orator. But this is a defect in 
them, to be avoided so far as you can — not a manner 
specially to be imitated. Because one distinguished man 
hesitates in his speech, another is ungainly in action, a 
third does not frame a complete sentence, and a fourth 
is at a loss for words, you are not to deem yourself 



60 



THE ART OF READING, 



exempt from endeavours to avoid the faults into which 
they have fallen, They are not the less faults, not the 
less to be shunned ; and if you desire success, you must 
consent to learn what to do and what to shun, and strive 
earnestly to put in practice what you have so learned. 

It is true that many persons speak well who read 
badly, and I do not say that good reading is necessarily 
allied with good speaking ; but I confidently assert that 
the two arts are so nearly connected that the surest 
way to learn to speak is to learn to read. But it is not 
alone as a pathway to speaking that I earnestly exhort 
you to the study of reading. It is an accomplishment 
to be sought for its own sake. It has incalculable uses 
and advantages of its own, apart from its introduction to 
oratory. Tolerable readers are few, good readers are 
extremely rare. Not one educated man in ten can read 
a paragraph in a newspaper with so much propriety that 
to listen to him is a pleasure and not a pain. Nine 
persons out of ten are unable so to express the words as 
to convey their meaning ; they pervert the sense of the 
sentence by emphasising in the wrong place, or deprive 
it of all sense by a monotonous gabble, giving no 
emphasis to any word they utter ; they neglect the 
"stops," as they are called; they make harsh music 
with their voices ; they hiss, or croak, or splutter, or 
mutter — everything but speak the words set down for 
them as they would have talked them to you out of book. 
Why should this be ? Why should correct reading be 
rare, pleasant reading rarer still, and good reading found 
only in one man in ten thousand? The enthusiastic 
advocates for popular music assert that every man who 
can speak can sing, if he would only learn the art of 
singing. If this be true of singing, much more is it true 



X. THE ART OF READING. 



61 



of reading. It is quite certain that every man, woman 
and child who can talk may read, if they would learn to 
read, and not be content to read anyhow, but looking 
upon reading as an accomplishment. I do not say that 
every person who labours to acquire the art will be 
enabled to read well ; to this certain natural qualifications 
are requisite, which are not given to all in the same pro- 
portions and to some are denied altogether, and others 
may be impeded by the presence of defects that may be 
relieved though not quite cured. But it is in the power 
of every person, not having some natural deformity, such 
as a stammer, to learn to read correctly, so that his 
hearers may understand what he reads, and pleasantly 
enough not to vex their ears or offend their tastes. If 
you can but attain to this, it is an acquirement that will 
be of great service in life ; it will spare you many un- 
pleasant sensations of conscious awkwardness when you 
are compelled to read aloud to others. Few private 
persons can altogether escape this demand upon them : 
but a professional man cannot hope to do so. His 
business will certainly make continual calls upon his 
lips. A barrister, above all men, next to a clergyman, 
needs to read well, because he is daily required to read, 
A solicitor may hope to escape by shunning the practice 
that requires his appearance in the courts ; but in vain. In 
his office he must sometimes read to his clients. If they 
excuse him, the public will not. A solicitor, especially 
in a provincial town, is looked upon as a sort of public 
property. He is expected, by virtue of his profession as 
a lawyer, to be the mouthpiece of the public of his 
locality ; he is pressed into the service in all public 
affairs, thrust into the chair at public meetings, or en- 
listed as honorary secretary for societies, and required to 



62 



THE ART OF READING. 



read " the annual report " at the annual meeting ; or 
resolutions are forced into his hands to be moved or 
seconded, or at elections he must speechify to the 
"worthy and independent or he is made the mayor, 
and called upon to read addresses to great personages, or 
to submit no end of reports and correspondence to the 
town council on matters of local importance. Every 
Lawyer ought undoubtedly to learn to read, which 
branch of the Profession soever he may choose to practise, 
and whether he does or does not aspire to be a speaker. 

My purpose now is to submit to you some hints for 
acquiring the art of reading. 

The requirements of a reader are twofold : — first, to 
express rightly what he reads ; and, secondly, to do this 
pleasantly. 

First,— of reading rightly. By this I mean correct 
reading ; that is to say, expressing fully and truly the 
author's meaning ; saying for him what he designed to 
say, and so transmitting to the mind of the listener the 
ideas which the author desired to impart. To compre- 
hend fully what you ought to do when you undertake to 
read a book aloud, you should suppose that the thoughts 
you are going to utter are your own, coming from your 
own mind, and ask yourself how, if they had been your 
thoughts, and you had spoken them instead of writing 
them, you would have expressed them. 

This is the grand rule for reading. The foundation of 
good reading is the perfect understanding of what you 
read. Without this, you will never be a reader, whatever 
other qualifications you may possess. Strive, then, above 
all, and first of all, after this, and the rest will probably 
follow. It is one of the many benefits of learning to 
read, that you must also learn what you read. Until 



X. THE ART OF HEADING. 



63 



you have tried it, you cannot conceive the mighty 
difference there is in the knowledge you acquire of an 
author when you read him aloud and when you only 
peruse him silently. In the former ease, you must grasp 
every thought, every word, in all its significance ; in the 
latter, you are apt to pass over much of information or 
of beauty, through inattention or impatience for the 
story. Of our greatest writers — the men of genius — it 
may be asserted that you cannot know them fully 
or appreciate them rightly until you have read them 
aloud. If you doubt this, make trial with a play of 
Shakespeare, and however often you may have perused 
it silently, however perfectly you may imagine yourself 
to be acquainted with it, when you read it aloud you 
will find infinite subtilties of the poet's genius which 
you had never discovered before. 

I can proffer to you no rules for learning to under- 
stand what you read. The faculty is a natural gift, 
varying in degree with the other intellectual powers. 
But every person of sound mind is capable of compre- 
hending the meaning of a writer who expresses himself 
clearly, in plain language. Learned works can be 
understood only by learned men ; but there are none 
who cannot appreciate a pictorial narrative ; few who 
cannot enjoy a sensible reflection, a truthful sentiment, 
a poetical thought, a graceful style. To become a 
reader, however, you must advance a little beyond this. 
You must be enabled instantly to perceive these features, 
for you will be required to give expression to them on 
the instant. As fast as your eye falls upon the words 
should the intelligence they are designed to convey flash 
through your mind. You cannot pause to reflect on 
the author's meaning : your hesitation would be seen 



64 



THE ART OF READING, 



and felt. Now this rapidity of perception is mainly £ 
matter of habit. It can come only from so much 
practice that the words suggest the thought at the 
moment they are presented. In this the studies pre- 
viously recommended for the acquirement of the Art of 
Writing will very much assist you. 

At the beginning of your exercises, if you do not 
already possess that rapidity of perception of an author's 
'meaning, you should practise yourself by reading silently 
and slowly two or three pages of some book by some 
writer of genius, pausing at the end of each sentence to 
ask yourself what the author designed to say ; and 
be not content with some general answer, but assure 
yourself that you really comprehend him clearly, by 
putting the thought into other words. This is a 
troublesome process, but it is very successful, and the 
labour at the beginning is saved at the end, for you will 
learn your lesson in a shorter time. I would even re- 
commend that you perform this exercise in writing, for 
then you cannot escape in vagueness of idea, as when 
you trust to thought only. But whether you do or do 
not submit to that laborious task, you must read often 
and in silence before you begin to read the same pages 
aloud. 

Having, as you suppose, thus tolerably mastered the 
meaning of the written pages, you may proceed to read 
them aloud. This process is of itself a monitor, for, if 
you have not found the meaning, you will be conscious 
of awkwardness in your manner of reading. Failing in 
the first attempt, try again, and again, and again, until 
you are enabled to express the thoughts as fast as the 
words are presented to your eye. 

By some such exercises as these, you will be assisted 



X. THE ART OF READING. 



65 



in the attainment of the first and most important 
qualification for a reader, the clear comprehension of the 
writer's meaning, attained at the very moment that his 
words are presented to your mind through the eye. 



66 



Letter XL 

THE ART OF READING— WHAT TO AVOID— 
ARTICULATION. 

If you rightly understand what you read, you will 
express it rightly. But it is also necessary to under- 
stand it readily, so as to read readily as well as rightly. 
Herein is the difference between reading aloud and 
reading to yourself. "When you read to yourself, you 
can pause to ponder upon the meaning intended to be 
conveyed by the writer, and you ought to search for it 
till you have found it, and for that purpose you may 
try back again and reperuse the sentence or the page as 
often as may be necessary. When reading aloud, you 
have no such liberty for pause, reflection and repetition. 
You must proceed, right or wrong, understanding or 
misunderstanding. The meaning of what you are to 
read must be seized at the instant your eye falls upon the 
words, or there will be hesitation in your speech, very 
perceptible to your audience, and very disagreeable. 
Practice alone will enable you to attain this rapid 
apprehension of the thoughts conveyed in the words. It 
cannot be taught, there are no rules for it — practice is 
the only path to its acquirement. 



XI. WHAT TO AVOID ARTICULATION. 



67 



Having learned to express rightly and readily the 
thoughts which the writer whose language you are 
reading designed to convey, you have laid broadly and 
strongly the foundations for success in the art of reading ; 
these are the elements of a good reader. But it is the 
foundation only of the art ; all the ornament is to come. 
It is not enough to read rightly — you must read 
pleasantly as well as correctly, so that your hearers may 
not only be enabled to understand, but induced to listen. 
A dull, monotonous reader will not win the ear, however 
faultless his rendering of the sense of what he reads. 
Your reading will not be profitable to others, unless it 
is also pleasant. I proceed to give you some hints how 
to make it so. 

First, I must tell you what you ought not to do. 
Shun equally mannerism and monotony. Do not, at the 
moment you open the book to read aloud, change your 
tone and style of speaking, as is the evil habit of so 
many persons. The term "many," indeed, scarcely 
expresses the universality of this fault. The exceptions 
are extremely rare. Nineteen persons out of twenty 
read in a tone and with a manner altogether different 
from those in which they would have uttered the same 
sentences out of book. It is a bad habit, probably 
acquired from bad teaching in childhood, which they 
do not shake off in after years, only because they have 
not practised reading or sought to attain something of 
it as an art. It is curious to note how a sentence, 
spoken at one moment in the most natural, and there- 
fore truthful and expressive, manner, is followed in- 
stantly by a sentence read from a book with tone and 
manner entirely different, either stilted and affected or 
inexpressive and stupid, but thoroughly unnatural and 



n8 



THE ART OF READING. 



artificial ; and then, if the book be closed, without the 
pause of a moment, the talk will be resumed in the 
same easy strain as before. This is the first defect to be 
removed. Before you can hope to read well, you must 
thoroughly emancipate yourself from this bad habit of 
treating reading as an operation altogether different 
from talking. 

But you will ask me how you may learn to do this. 
You must first distinctly recognise the fault, for, like 
most faults, a knowledge of it is half way towards the 
cure. You must remember, also, that in this instance 
your business is more to zmlearn than to learn. You 
have acquired a bad habit, and you must rid yourself of 
that ; you have laboriously taught yourself to be affected 
and unnatural, and you have to lay all that aside before 
you can read naturally. But that, you will say, is the 
great difficulty. You are right ; it is far more easy to 
learn than to unlearn. A bad habit, of slow growth and 
long cherished, is not thrown off without the exercise of 
much firmness and persistency. It can be conquered, if 
you will that it shall be subdued. Time and practice 
are the remedies. A few days, a few months even, may 
not suffice to effect a perfect cure ; but week by week 
there will be a perceptible improvement ; and though 
the fault may be never wholly removed, you will soon 
find such a lessening of it, that you need not be 
ashamed to read anything aloud anywhere. 

Clearly understanding your fault, betake yourself to a 
room where, being alone, you will not be shy of failure, 
and give yourself your first lesson in the art of reading, 
and thenceforth let this besetting sin be ever before you 
when you are practising ; for if you forget it for a 
moment, during your earlier studies at least, you will 



XI. WHAT TO AVOID ARTICULATION. 69 

certainly relapse into the old strain. Do not begin 
with poetry, or speeches, or any kind of composition 
that has a tendency to provoke bad habits. You would 
probably sing poetry and mouth an oration ; everybody 
does who has not studied reading as an art. But select 
some very simple narrative, especially if it contains 
some conversational dialogue, such as people talk in real 
life ; before you pronounce a word, ask yourself this 
question, "If I were going to tell this story out of my 
own head, instead of this book, to a friend sitting in 
that chair, myself sitting quite as composedly in this one, 
how should I utter it ?" So try to read it aloud, addres- 
sing the said chair as if your friend was there in fact. 
At first make no attempt to read well ; practise nothing 
but how to read naturally. Eepeat the same reading 
several times in succession, noting with a pencil such 
passages as you feel not to have been properly spoken, 
and when you come to them take special pains to avoid 
the fault of which you were conscious before. Suppose 
that you choose for your first lesson Andersen's clever 
story of the " Emperor's New Clothes" (and you could 
not find a better for your purpose). Think how you would 
tell it to your family circle, after dark, before a 
Christmas fire, and in that strain try to read it. The 
perfection of such a reading would be, so to read that 
the eyes of your audience only, and not their ears, could 
tell them that you are reading. This must be your aim, 
and to this skill you will gradually approach — insensibly 
perhaps, if day be measured by day, but perceptibly 
enough to a listener at intervals of a month. 

I dwell thus upon this first step in your teaching, 
because it lies at the foundation of good reading ; and 
if the faults of early habit are not thrown off, and a 



70 



THE ART OF READING. 



natural manner restored, whatever your other accom- 
plishments in the art, you can never become a good 
reader. The Art of Heading can be mastered only by 
practice, conducted as I have described (for I am treating 
now of seZ/'-instruction), and that practice persistently 
pursued for a long time. 

I would recommend to you that, at the beginning, you 
give your exclusive attention to this subject. It should 
engross your thoughts during your reading practice. 
Have no other care than how to read naturally. When 
you have made some manifest progress in this, and you 
are conscious that you are beginning to read as unaf- 
fectedly as you talk, you may begin to have regard to 
the other qualifications of a reader. 

And of these the first is to sound your words. Here, 
too, you will probably have a good deal to wnlearn. It 
is almost certain that you have fallen into habits of 
slovenly utterance, acquired in early childhood, and 
never afterwards corrected ; for at schools it is seldom 
thought necessary to teach the pupil to speak and read 
— it seems to be taken for granted that he can do thus 
much, or that it is a matter for his own correction only, 
and not within the province of a regular educational 
course. Moreover, in our daily talk we do not speak 
distinctly. We drop letters, we join words, we slur 
sounds, we mutter much that should be spoken. This 
is peculiarly an English fault, and you must guard 
against it sedulously, for it is a bar to good reading. 
The cure for it is the same as for the habit already 
noticed — -practice — until you have so conquered it, that 
the full sound of the word comes to your lips as readily 
as the imperfect sound to which they had been trained 
before. You must begin by an exaggeration of expression 



XL WHAT TO AVOID ARTICULATION. 71 

slowly repeated ; for it is supposed that you pursue this 
study alone, or with only a friendly adviser. Taking 
your book, pronounce each word slowly, with a short 
pause between, giving positive expression to every sound 
in the word. Make no attempt during this practice to 
do more than pronounce. Do not try to read; your 
present purpose is to master articulation. Eemember 
this, that there are very few words with letters in them 
actually mute. They are not sounded separately, but 
for the most part they modify the sound of other 
letters. Give to each sound that goes to make up the 
word its full value ; do not omit to roll the " r's " and 
hiss the " s's " while learning your lesson ; there is no 
danger of your running into the extreme of expression. 
Having in this manner read a sentence very slowly, read 
it again somewhat more quickly, and so three or 
four times, until you find that you read it with ease and 
readiness. An articulation so acquired is of infinite 
advantage, for it is thus that you make yourself 
distinctly heard far off as well as near, and thus it is 
that you are enabled to express the most delicate shades 
of emotion by the most delicate inflections of sound. 



72 



Letter XII. 

PRONUNCIATION— EXPRESSION. 

Having, by slow reading and giving full expression to 
every sound, tutored yourself in articulation and sub- 
dued the habitual tendency of the tongue to drop letters, 
slur syllables and dovetail words, you may gradually 
resume the proper speed in reading ; pausing, however, 
and repeating the lesson, whenever you find yourself re- 
turning to your old habits of speech. The time thus 
spent will be a gain to you in the end, for you cannot 
read well until this mechanical portion of the art is 
accomplished mechanically, without requiring the aid 
of the mind, which must be engaged upon other parts of 
your work. If you are considering how you shall pro- 
nounce your words, you cannot be thinking also what 
was the meaning of the author and how it should be 
conveyed to your audience — the only matters upon which 
the mind should be engaged while practising the art 
of reading. Therefore will it be necessary for you to 
exercise yourself in articulation for a very long time, 
and not to cease from practice until you have so 
mastered it that you articulate well unconsciously, with- 
out thinking how you are to articulate. 



XII. PRONUNCIATION EXPRESSION. 73 

When you can articulate your words well, turn your 
attention to the pronunciation of sentences. In learning 
to articulate, you have practised with single words, giving 
to each its full sound, without reference to its association 
with other words. You will now study how to pronounce 
many words placed together. In this process you have 
not, as before, to sound each word in full, but you must 
mould the pronunciation of each according to the 
meaning it is designed to convey, and also in accordance 
with certain conventional laws of speech by which, in a 
collocation of sounds, some are subordinated to others, 
and some modified so as to harmonise with those which 
precede or follow. Here, again, teachers of elocution 
profess to prescribe rules, for the guidance of the pupil, 
which may be correct in themselves, but the observance 
of which would certainly make the reader who tries to 
observe them an ungainly pedant and his reading a 
positive pain to his audience. Pronunciation is, in 
truth, a matter of taste and ear, and if you cannot learn 
it by help of these monitors within, you will never 
master it by formulas prescribed from without. 

I am treating now of pronunciation merely. The 
right expression to be given to sentences will be the 
subject for much more extended consideration presently. 

Practice and patience are the only hints I can offer 
you for the acquirement of a correct and pleasing pro- 
nunciation. But it is almost certain that you will not 
be entirely free from defects acquired in early life, and 
especially from provincialisms, of which it is so very hard 
to rid yourself, because you are not conscious of their 
presence. The sounds of the first words written on 
your memory are hard to be obliterated and never can 
be corrected by your own unaided efforts. The simple 

E 



74 



THE ART OF READING. 



remedy is to invite the assistance of a friend, who 
will be quite as efficient for the purpose as a master ; 
ask him to listen while you read, and to detect any 
provincialisms, or faulty or slovenly pronunciations, of 
which you may be guilty. Direct him to stop you as 
the word is spoken and show you your error by uttering 
to you the word, first, as you spoke it, and then as it 
ought to have been spoken ; and you should repeat 
u ; again and again until he ceases to find any fault with 
it. When you have thus completed a sentence and 
corrected every word that was imperfectly pronounced, 
read it again once or twice, rapidly but clearly, to be 
sure that you have caught the true sounds ; then, after an 
interval of diversion of the ear by reading other things, 
return to the passages that were the most incorrectly read, 
and try them again, until you can read them rightly 
without reflection or pause. Scoring the imperfectly 
pronounced words with a pencil, as your listening friend, 
or your own ear, tells you of their faultiness, will assist 
you in the performance of this useful .exercise. 

Having thus acquired distinct articulation and correct 
pronunciation, you will address yourself to the third stage 
in the art of reading — expression. Not merely must 
single words be fully sounded, and collected words rightly 
sounded, but that which you read requires to be uttered 
in the proper tone and with correct emphasis. 

I shall best explain to you what I mean by this, and con- 
vince you of its importance, by looking at the sources of it. 

Speech is one, and the most frequent, of the media by 
which mind communicates with mind. When you ad- 
dress another person, it is your purpose either to convey 
to him some fact, or to excite in him some emotion, or 
to convince him by some argument. Strict philosophy 



XII. PRONUNCIATION EXPRESSION. 75 

would assign this third object to the former ones ; but, 
as I am not writing a philosophical treatise, but merely 
telling you my experiences as to the best manner of 
learning an art. I prefer this threefold description as 
most intelligible. Whatever the mind desires to convey 
expresses itself naturally and unconsciously in a manner 
of its own. You will instantly recognise this natural 
language in the expression of the more powerful 
emotions — joy, grief, fear. Each has its proper tone, 
the expression of which is recognised by all human 
beings, whether the emotion be or be not shaped into 
speech. But the finer emotions have their own appropriate 
expression also, which you may discover if you observe 
closely, diminishing by delicate shades until they can be 
caught only by the refined ear, and from which we may 
conclude that whatever the mind desires to express in 
speech is naturally and unconsciously uttered in a tone 
appropriate to itself,, and which tone is adapted to excite 
the corresponding emotion in the mind to which it is 
addressed. You feel alarm — your voice, without effort 
on your part, sounds the note of alarm ; it falls upon 
the ear and passes into the mind of another man, and 
instantly excites the same emotion in him. You are 
oppressed with grief — you give utterance to your grief 
in tones of sadness ; the mind that hears them feels sad 
too ; the same emotion is awakened in that mind by the 
faculty which is called sympathy. Words that come from 
the mind are but the mind made audible and therefore 
must vary with every wave of thought or feeling. This 
is what I mean by expression in reading, 

We have not always expression when we speak, because 
sometimes we talk almost mechanically, without the 
mind being engaged : or rather with no propose to convey 

E 2 



76 



THE ART OF BEADING, 



any state of our own mind to the minds of others. That 
kind of talk you will readily recognise. There is 
another sort of speech that may be without expression, 
which we call speaking by rote, where words come from 
the memory only and not from the mind. This excep- 
tion, indeed, admirably illustrates the rule. It is a 
proverbial saying, that a man talks like a parrot — by 
rote — to imply that he is merely reproducing sounds 
that have been impressed upon his memory, and not 
giving utterance to thoughts and feelings existing in his 
mind. You know the unmistakeable monotony of speech 
by rote, and may thus, perhaps, more clearly apprehend 
my meaning when in these letters I treat only of the 
speech that expresses by infinite tones the infinite condi- 
tions of the mind from which it proceeds. 

You will readily gather from this brief sketch of the 
source of Expression that it is a mental process, and that 
the surest, if not the only, way to accomplish it is to speak 
from the mind. If, in reading, you were uttering your own 
thoughts, there would be no difficulty in this, for nature 
would supply the right tones without an effort, and even 
without consciousness, on your part. You will say, perhaps, 
that in reading you do not express your own mind, but the 
mind of another. That is true ; but the same principle 
applies. In order to read well you must make the thoughts of 
the author your own. This is a special faculty, possessed 
by various minds in various degrees. I can best explain 
it to you by reference to the case of the actor, who is a 
reader from memory instead of from book, and in whom 
the faculty is so highly cultivated that its operation can be 
most clearly seen. But the subject will require a longer 
exposition than could properly be given to it at the close 
of a letter ; so at this point I pause. 



77 



Letter XIII. 

THE ART OF THE ACTOR AND THE READER, 



The Actor reads from his memory instead of reading from 
a book, and he adds action to expression. The reader 
reads from the book, and not from his memory, but he 
should recite what he reads in precisely the same 
manner as does the actor. You have often heard 
it said of a man that he reads in a theatrical manner, as 
if that was a fault in him ; but, before it is admitted to 
be a fault, we must understand precisely in what sense 
the phrase is used. The term might be employed to 
indicate reading like a bad actor or like a good one. 
Some persons, educated in evil habits of reading, unac- 
customed to hear good reading, and who have never 
contemplated reading as an art and an accomplishment, 
might ignorantly denounce as " theatrical " any reading 
that rises above gabbling and all attempts to give 
natural expression to the words and thoughts. Such 
reading is "theatrical" indeed, but only in a commend- 
able sense. There is, however, a theatrical manner, 
that is called so reproachfully, and with justice, for it 
means reading like a bad actor — ranting, mouthy, and 



78 



THE ART OF READING. 



declamatory, or lugubrious and droning ; tearing a 
passion to tatters, swelling into sing-song, or lapsing into 
a monotonous drawl. Exaggerated expression in reading 
is like a part over-acted on the stage, but it is preferable 
to the absence of expression ; and therefore see that you 
do not fall into the fault of monotony through fear of 
being called theatrical. 

The faculty by which an actor is enabled to accomplish 
his task is that which gives to him the power of for- 
getting himself and becoming somebody else. Reflect 
for a moment what a man must do in order to play 
some part in a drama — Hamlet, for instance. He must 
become Hamlet for the time, and for that time he must 
cease to be himself ; he must think and feel as Hamlet, 
or he cannot look and move like Hamlet. He does not 
this by a process of argument ; he does not read a scene 
in the play, and then say to himself, " Here Hamlet is 
awe-stricken at the appearance of the Ghost, and to look 
as if I was awe-stricken I must stand in this posture, and 
open nry eyes thus wide, and make my voice quiver — so, 
and speak in such atone." All this would be impossible 
of acquirement as a matter of teaching, for the memory 
could never carry such a multitude of directions and 
recall them at the right moment. The actual process 
is more simple. The true actor reads the play ; he 
ascertains what was the character of Hamlet ; he learns 
the language put into Hamlet's mouth. When he 
reproduces it, he becomes Hamlet, feels and thinks as 
Hamlet ; the words have entered his mind and excited 
there the precise emotions Hamlet was imagined to feel 
by the genius that created him. He feels them, not by 
rule or by an effort of his own, but instinctively. The 
mind being moved, the voice, the aspect, the action, 



XIII. THE ART OF THE ACTOR AND THE READER. 79 

express the mind's emotions. It was thus that the 
dramatist wrote. He, too, did not artfully construct the 
thoughts and emotions conveyed by the words spoken by 
his personages. Placing his own mind in their positions, 
he felt the feelings and thought the thoughts which such 
persons in such cases would have felt and thought and 
these he clothed in appropriate language. The actor 
seizes upon the same personages, performs the same 
process of placing himself in imagination in the same 
positions, feels and thinks thus, and therefore rightly 
expresses the emotions and thoughts of the author. 
The difference between the genius of the actor and the 
genius of the author is this — that the actor does not 
create, he merely expresses the creations of the author. 
Although the creative genius is the greatest, great is the 
genius that can embody those creations, and make them 
live before our eyes. When the process is contemplated, 
we cannot but marvel much at the power that can so 
identify itself with the emotions of another mind as to 
become that mind for a season, feel all that it felt, think 
all that it thought, and then express those thoughts 
and feelings, as the creator of the character would 
have expressed them, had he possessed the power to 
do so. 

To be a good reader, you must possess a portion of 
this faculty of the actor. The great actor has two 
mental powers that are perfectly distinct, each of which 
might exist without the other. He must be able to 
read truly and to act rightly. It is not enough for him 
that he can read the part as it ought to be read ; he 
must also be able to act it as it ought to be acted. 
Herein is the difference between the actor and the 
reader. The reader requires to be only half an actor ; 



80 



THE ART OF READING. 



he needs but to be accomplished in the first portion of 
the actor's art. Hence it is more easy to be a good 
reader than a good actor ; hence it is that, although a 
good actor must be a good reader, you may be a very 
good reader without being also a good actor. But bear 
this in mind, that you should endeavour to accomplish 
yourself even to the actor's skill in reading, and that the 
test of your excellence will be precisely that which 
would be applied to the reading of his part by the 
actor upon the stage. As the critic would sit in judg- 
ment on the manner in which an actor reads Hamlet 
when he acts it — that is to say, how he expresses 
the words, apart from the acting — so would a judicious 
critic judge your reading of it when seated in the 
drawing-room. The rules to be observed by both 
are the same ; the same effects are to be studied, 
the same intonations to be used. You should so read 
that, if the listener's eyes were bandaged, he could 
not tell that you were not acting, save by perceiving 
that your voice is stationary. 

I have dwelt on this connection, and distinction, 
between acting and reading, because they are seldom 
rightly understood even by those who have studied the 
art of reading. Some, fearing to be thought " theatrical" 
make a positive endeavour to avoid reading as an actor 
should read ; and, on the other hand, some think that 
acting and reading are identical and rush into a man- 
nerism that imperfectly unites the two and spoils both, 
and these are the readers to whom the reproach of being 
" theatrical" properly applies. By clearly understanding 
what is the precise boundary between reading and acting 
— how nearly they approach, but never touch — you will, 
I hope, educate yourself to advance boldly to the 



XIII. THE ART OF THE ACTOR AND THE READER, 81 



boundary of your art, without trespassing beyond it into 
the territory that belongs exclusively to the actor. 

I cannot too often repeat to you that the foundations 
of the art of reading are understanding and feeling. If 
you do not clearly see the writer's meaning, you cannot 
interpret truly his thoughts ; and unless you can feel the 
emotions he is painting, you cannot give the right ex- 
pression to the words that breathe them, If you are 
deficient in either of these faculties, no study will make 
you a good reader. Having these natural gifts, all 
the rest may be acquired by diligence and training. I 
do not assert that, without these qualifications, it is use- 
less to learn the art of reading. I desire only to warn 
you that, wanting them, or either of them, you may not 
hope to become an accomplished reader. But you may 
acquire sufficient of the art for all the ordinary purposes 
or business or recreation ; you may read easily to your- 
self and pleasantly to others— more pleasantly, indeed, 
than many who possess the natural qualifications you 
want, but want the training you have received. Do 
not, therefore, be disheartened should you discover that 
you cannot throw your mind instantly into the concep- 
tions of the author, so as to think and feel them as 
if they had been your own ; but manfully resolve to 
learn to do that which not one educated man in ten can 
do, namely, to read a page of prose or poetry with 
common propriety, to say nothing of reading it with 
effect. 

And do not too hastily conclude that you have 
not the faculties in question. Earely are they quite 
absent from any mind. Often they lie dormant for want 
of cultivation and stimulus, unknown even to the pos- 
sessor, until some accident reveals to himself and others 
e 3 



c<9 



THE AET OF READING. 



the capacities of which lie was not before conscious. They 
may be awakened from sleep ; they may be stimulated 
into action ; they may be cultivated into excellence. Be 
assured that they are quite wanting in you before you 
despair. Do not resign on the first trial. Persevere 
until conviction is forced upon you. 

How may you ascertain this important fact ? Take 
some dramatic composition, some play of Shakespeare 
which you have not seen upon the stage, or a chapter of 
dialogue in a novel, and read it aloud. Are you 
conscious that you understand the author's meaning ? 
Do you feel the emotions he expresses, or do they go into 
your ear and out at your lips without passing through 
your mind and there becoming instinct with soul, so that 
you speak living words, and not mere inanimate sounds ? 
Your own feelings will soon tell you if you have any 
sympathies with the author. But if you are unwilling 
to trust yourself, ask the same judicious friend, before 
recommended as your assistant, to lend you his ears for 
half -an -hour's reading. He can surely tell, if you 
cannot, whether you read with emotion or by rote. 
Improve yourself by hearing good reading and seeing 
good acting whensoever the opportunity offers, and 
comparing your own reading with that of the reader or 
actor, you will the more readily discover your own 
deficiencies and set them to mending. 

Thus we arrive at the conclusion that reading is an 
art which all may acquire sufficiently for the daily uses 
of life at home or abroad. 

As an accomplishment, where the pleasure of the 
audience is the object, reading must be something more 
than tolerable — it must be good. 



83 



Letter XIV. 

THE MANAGEMENT OF THE VOICE — TONE. 

I have endeavoured to explain to you, that to become a 
good reader you must learn to pronounce the words 
properly and express the sense rightly. These are the 
indispensable foundations of reading, but divers accom- 
plishments of various values must be superadded. Of 
these presently. 

You now understand, I hope, what it is you have need 
to acquire. I will now proceed to give you some hints (for 
it will be impossible to do more by writing than suggest) 
how to pursue this acquirement ; how you may best learn 
to read correctly and expressively. 

As I have already observed, the first step is the most 
difficult — it is the banishment of positive faults. Few 
are free from them altogether ; they are painfully pro- 
minent in the majority of persons, however - highly 
educated. There is but one training that will cure these 
defects. You may modify, but you cannot remove them, 
by your own unaided efforts, because so much has habit 
familiarised them that you are not conscious of their 
presence. A judicious friend would indicate them to 



84 



THE ART OF READING, 



you — —so would a master ; but a friend is preferable, for 
masters are almost always infected with mannerism, and 
there is the utmost danger of their infecting you. A 
friend who would serve you by listening and indicating 
your faults on the instant, compelling you to repetition 
of the word or the sentence until it is mended, is the 
best possible teacher. Perhaps in your own family circle 
you may find some to do this good office. The fault 
thus indicated, and at once amended, is not readily 
forgotten afterwards. When the same word recurs, you 
remember the fault and avoid it, until after a while you 
will find the right pronunciation or reading becoming as 
familiar as was the wrong one. To this, however, 
perseverance is needful. Errors entertained from child- 
hood are not banished in a day. The lesson must be 
repeated daily, until no pause for reflecting how to speak 
is manifest. When you have attained to this the fault 
is conquered. 

Positive faults removed, the next step will be to 
acquire the accomplishments. You have learned what 
not to do, you will next learn what to do. 

The most frequent faults are imperfect articulation, 
provincialisms, bad management of the voice, monotony, 
absence of emphasis, or emphasising in the wrong 
place. 

A few words on each of these. 

Imperfect articulation, its causes and its cure have 
already been treated of. 

Provincial pronunciation has the same origin ; early 
associations become so much a habit that you are un- 
conscious of their presence. A listener, not coming 
from the same part of the country, can alone detect the 
presence of these provincialisms and set you to mending 



XIV. MANAGEMENT OF THE VOICE TONE, ' 85 

them. Both this and imperfect articulation are of all 
faults the most difficult to remove, and they can be 
conquered only by patience and perseverance. It is not 
the work of a day, or a week ; months, or even years, 
may be required thoroughly to subdue them. 

The management of the voice is a point of very great 
importance in reading. There is, first, the regulation of 
the breath. You cannot breathe, while reading, without 
a perceptible pause, and more or less of alteration in the 
tone of the voice, produced by the change from the 
empty to the full lung affecting the pressure upon the 
delicate organs of speech. Hence the necessity for so 
regulating the breath that it may be drawn at the right 
moment. Where sentences are not very long, there is 
no great difficulty in drawing breath at the close of a 
sentence ; but sometimes sentences are extended through 
many lines, and the sense requires that the voice should 
be evenly sustained from the beginning to the end. In 
such a case you must breathe before its conclusion. The 
effort will be least perceptible if you seize a convenient 
moment for a pause, which by a little art might be 
made to appear as a pause required by the subject, and 
thus an operation really wanted for your own relief may, 
by ingenuity, add efficiency to the reading, by relieving 
the monotony of sound and giving time to the 
listener to follow the sense, which in such cases is 
usually involved in a wilderness of words. But there is 
one rule for the management of the breathing which is 
equally applicable to all occasions. Invariably draw 
breath through the nostrils, and not through the mouth. 
This is the golden rule for reading and for speaking. If 
you do not observe this rule, your utterance will be a 
series of spasmodic gasps. Breathing through the 



*6 



THE ART OF READING. 



nostrils, the air is slowly admitted, the lungs expand, and 
the chest rises with an equable motion that prevents 
the voice from quivering and its tones from changing 
abruptly. 

At all times the voice requires to be kept under 
control. Some readers do not speak out. but as many 
are unable to keep rein upon their voices. Both are faults 
of almost equal degree. Both may be natural defects, in- 
capable of cure ; but far more frequently they are the 
results of bad training, or no training, in early youth. 
In such cases the cure is not difficult. Simply to speak 
out should be the first lesson. Go into a room alone, 
or, still better, into a field, and read aloud at the top of 
your voice ; thus you will learn what power of voice is 
in you and ascertain what you can do, if need be. If 
you find your voice weak, repeat the process day by day, 
for weeks or months, and its strength will certainly be 
increased, sufficiently, at least, for all the purposes of 
ordinary reading. If your breathing is short, that, too, 
will be strengthened by the same exercise ; and I have 
found no little benefit from a practice which seems rather 
formidable at first, namely, reading aloud as you walk 
up hill. Not merely does this strengthen the lungs, 
but it teaches you the scarcely less important acquire- 
ment of regulating the supply of the breath to the voice, 
upon which you must depend mainly for ease in reading. 
To husband the breath is in itself an art, for if you pour 
out too much, you exhaust the lungs and must replenish 
them before a proper pause in the sentence permits of it, 
to the equal annoyance of your audience and of yourself. 
You may measure your capacity in this respect by taking 
a full inspiration, and then at regular intervals counting 
one, two, three, &c, and the number you can thus 



XIV. MANAGEMENT OF THE VOICE TONE. 87 

express at one breath, without refilling the chest, will 
show you, not only the power of your lungs, but also the 
control which you have over them in regulating the exit 
of the breath. Make a note of the number to which 
you attain at the beginning of your training, and 
compare it from time to time with present capacities, 
and you will see what has been your progress. 

But not only must you acquire power of voice, you 
must learn also to regulate the voice. This is an accom- 
plishment far more more difficult to be acquired than 
mere strength of voice, as may be seen by the com- 
parative infrequency of the attainment. How many 
persons, in all other respects good readers, are wanting 
in the power of intonation. They read right on, perhaps 
with a fine, full, sonorous, and even musical voice, that 
is in itself very pleasing, but which we find to be a 
monotone. Let this be ever so rich or sweet in itself, it 
palls by its monotony. The ear soon longs even for a 
discord to disturb that smooth stream of sound which, 
delightful at first, after a while becomes wearisome, and, 
in the end, is positively painful. Only one degree 
worse than this is a weak or dissonant voice. What- 
ever yours may be, you must strive industriously to 
avoid monotony and cultivate flexibility of the organs 
of speech and variety of tone. Almost every sentence 
requires a change of the voice, according to the thought 
it utters. The tones of the voice are the natural ex- 
pression of the mind — the natural language of the 
emotions — understood by all, felt by all, exciting the 
sympathies of all, appealing equally to all people of all 
countries and of all classes. Unless you can express, by 
the tones of your voice, the emotions which the printed 
page before you is designed to convey, you cannot perform 



88 



THE ART OF READING, 



your function of interpreter between the author and the 
audience, and you will fail to achieve the very purpose 
of your art. 

Closely scanned, you will discover that this is very 
nearly the measure of accomplishment in the art of 
reading. Excellence consists in the command of tone. 
The presence of this power will compensate for the 
absence of many other good qualities ; its absence will 
not be compensated by the presence of all other ex- 
cellencies. Clear articulation, correct pronunciation, 
accurate accentuation, and the graces of a rich voice well 
managed, are not substitutes for those tones that express 
the emotions and ally sound with sense. Tone of the 
voice resembles expression of the countenance. How 
often have you admired a face that had not a single 
faultless feature, because it possessed the undefmable 
charm of expression. So it is with readers. Where the 
mind flashes and sparkles in the voice, the listener first 
forgives, and then forgets, the gravest deficiencies in 
other requirements of the art. 

Therefore cultivate tone. It is not a faculty you can 
acquire, because it is the result of certain characteristics 
of the mind ; but it may be educated. Indeed, educa- 
tion is necessary, not only to expand it, but to train it in 
the right direction. If you enjoy the mental capacity, 
you may want the physical power, to express the feelings 
perfectly. The largest emotion in your own breast would 
be dwarfed when expressed by a thin small voice. 
Nevertheless, when the faculty is not altogether wanting 
— and such a case is extremely rare — it is capable of 
indefinite, though not unlimited, improvement. The 
physical organs may be strengthened by judicious use, 
and the mind itself may be trained to a more rapid, as 



XIV. MANAGEMENT OF THE VOICE TONE. 89 

well as a more energetic, expression of its emotions. 
Submit yourself to a series of lessons set to yourself, 
and repeated to yourself, if you have not a friend who 
will hear and correct them. Begin with the reading of 
a few pages of some composition calculated to kindle 
strong emotions, and when, by frequent repetition, you 
have brought out the full meaning, turn to others where 
the emotions to be expressed are more subtle. Having 
mastered these, advance to the still more delicate shades 
of meaning that require to be expressed by the slightest 
variations of tone. 

Having achieved thus much, your work will be more 
than half accomplished ; the foundations will be laid 
upon which you will, with small comparative difficulty, 
advance to the next stage in the progress of self-instruc- 
tion in the art of reading. 



90 



Letter XV. 

EMPHASIS. 

Emphasis is next to be studied, and it is entirely within 
the reach of self -attainment. Tone must, to some extent, 
depend upon physical qualifications ; but emphasis may 
be acquired by all. It is simply a stress laid upon 
words to which it is desired to attract the special atten- 
tion of the listener, and the art of reading is not acquired 
until 

First, emphasis is placed upon the right words. 

Secondly, the right amount of emphasis is given to 
each word, and 

Thirdly, emphasis is not given to wrong words. 

It is very difficult to describe emphasis by language. 
It is not precisely a louder sound, nor a lengthened 
sound, nor a pause, nor a peculiar tone, although it 
partakes something of all of these. If you do not clearly 
understand what it is, you may recognise it by reading 
half-a-dozen lines of the first book you open, uttering 
each word in the same manner, without the slightest 
change of expression, giving to particles and nouns the 
selfsame value ; you will thus discover what language 



XV. EMPHASIS. 



91 



would be if unemphasised. Eead them then in your 
usual manner, and you will find that, instinctively, with- 
out so designing, you pass some words glibly over the 
tongue, almost stringing them together, and to others 
you give a marked prominence, by an effort, partly 
mental, partly physical, which you will call a stress. 
That is emphasis, and, next to tone, the right use of it is 
necessary to good reading. 

In mastering emphasis, then, you must first learn 
to place it upon the right words. How may you da 
this? 

Writers and lecturers on elocution profess to prescribe 
many rules for the purpose, which they expect you to 
commit to memory, and apply when you are reading. I 
will not dispute the correctness of these rules ; perhaps 
it is in unconscious accordance with them that we read 
rightly ; but I am sure that nobody reads by rule, even 
if he reads according to rule. A reader who should 
beat about in his memory for rules for reading, and 
pause to apply them, however rapidly he might perform 
the process would be a halting reader ; certainly he 
would never read from his mind, but only from his book, 
and there would be a pedantic stiffness and slowness, 
more unpleasing to an audience than wrong reading. I 
shall not trouble you with reproduction of rules for that 
which, after all, is more the work of taste, but content 
myself with a few hints how you may best cultivate this 
important ingredient in the art of reading. 

Need I repeat that you must understand thoroughly 
what you are reading ? Without this, it is impossible 
that you can lay the emphasis rightly ; and if you rightly 
understand, you will emphasise well, by a natural impulse 
and unconsciously. But the faculty of rightly and quickly 



92 



THE ART OF READING. 



apprehending a writer's meaning is so rare that you 
cannot rely upon being possessed of it. You must not 
be disheartened if you discover that it is but feeble in 
you. The degrees of its power are infinite, as various 
as there are men ; few can boast of its perfect enjoy- 
ment, and as it is a faculty capable of education, let a 
sense of its weakness in yourself serve only to stimulate 
you to put it in training, by the simple process of reading 
a sentence from some great author and setting what you 
suppose to be its meaning in your own words. Be not 
content with thinking what that meaning is, or you will 
be sure to skip the difficulties, but express it audibly, or, - 
which is better, because surer, write it. This, often 
repeated, will work speedy improvement in the accuracy 
and rapidity with which you will catch, from a glance at 
his words, what the author designed to convey. 

But it is not enough to know what words should be 
emphasised. You should study also what amount of 
emphasis to give to each. The soul of reading is variety. 
Scarcely any two words in a sentence require precisely 
the same quantity of emphasis. You may readily 
satisfy yourself of the necessity for varied stress on 
various words by reading a sentence aloud, but uttering 
the words to be emphasised with the same measure of 
emphasis. The effect will be ludicrous. The purpose 
of emphasis is to impress upon the listener's mind the 
ideas to which it is desired to arrest his attention in pro- 
portion to their relative importance. In printing, this 
object is partially accomplished by the use of italic ; but 
these italics do not convey different degrees of expres- 
sion, and in this respect is an author perused in print 
vastly less effective and interesting that when well read 
aloud. In writing, the same feeble attempt to supply 



XV. EMPHASIS. 



93 



the place of emphasis is made by lines under the words 
on which a stress is designed to be laid, the number of 
dashes indicating the writer's notions of the degree of 
emphasis he would have used had he been speaking. 
This is one step in advance of the italic of the printers, 
which admits of no variations, and both fall far short 
of the infinite flexibility of the voice. But the " dashes " 
of the writer and the italics of the printer remind me of 
a danger to which all who use emphasis are extremely 
liable. If you are given to "dashing" your words, 
doubtless you will have found it to be a growing habit. 
Having emphasised so many, you are compelled to 
emphasise so many more to preserve their proportionate 
importance in relation to the rest, until your letters are 
ruled over like a music-book, and, trying to be very 
forcible, you have become very feeble. So it is with 
authors who indulge in italics ; the appetite grows with 
gratification, until the number of them destroys their 
effect. The same fault is not uncommon with readers 
who emphasise over much. Here, too, the power of the 
stress is lost if it is overlaid, for much emphasis is even 
more disagreeable than none. You will be required to 
keep constant watch and ward over yourself, or ask 
indulgent friends to notify your fault to you, if you 
would avoid a habit whose growth is imperceptible, and 
which, once acquired, is extremely difficult to be thrown 
aside. 

The best practice for the mastery of emphasis is to 
read a sentence, ponder upon its meaning, see that 
you understand it, or think you do ; then with a 
pencil score the words on which the greatest stress should 
be laid. Eead it aloud, emphasising the words so 
marked, and those only. Then score in like manner, 



94 



THE ART OF READING. 



but with a shorter "dash," such words as require a 
lesser degree of emphasis. Eead again, observing the 
two degrees of emphasis. Eepeat the process a third 
and even a fourth time, until you have exhausted all the 
words that appear to you to require any stress to be laid 
upon them. 

This is the first lesson. After a while you may spare 
yourself the tediousness of repeated readings of the 
same sentence, by thus scoring with lines of different 
lengths the words to be emphasised in whole paragraphs, 
pages and sections. But score them thus while reading 
silently, and afterwards read the whole aloud, pencil in 
hand ; the necessity for expression and the judgment of 
your ear will combine to test to a considerable extent the 
accuracy of your previous mental exercise ; and as you 
read, you should improve the score by additions and 
corrections, according to the discoveries you make of 
errors and omissions, and this do until you are satisfied 
with the reading, and the whole is marked as you 
would utter it. 

But not for a final closing. As you advance in the 
study and practice of the art of reading, you should 
from time to time revert to the pages that preserve 
your earlier impressions of the emphasis to be bestowed 
upon them, and read them aloud again, for the purpose 
of learning, not only what progress you have made, but 
how your better knowledge has changed your first views. 
At each of such readings, alter the scoring according 
to your new conceptions ; you will thus measure your 
advancement, which mere memory will not enable you 
to do. 

All this will appear very easy, and perhaps of very little 
interest or utility. In truth, it is by no means an easy 



XV. EMPHASIS. 



95 



task, and certainly you will find it both interesting and 
useful. Before you make trial of it. you will think that 
any schoolboy might mark the words to which emphasis 
should be given in reading. At the first trial such will 
probably be your own reflection, and you will use your 
pencil with a rapidity extremely flattering to your self- 
complacency. But on the second or third repetition you 
will begin to discover that you had been moving too fast ; 
you will doubt the correctness of some of your readings ; 
other meanings will present themselves ; you will be 
obliged to question closely the author's intent, that you 
may solve your doubts ; this more minute inspection will 
reveal new difficulties, not merely of meaning, but as to 
the proper manner of expressing the meaning, and you 
will find yourself engaged, perhaps, in a task of elaborate 
criticism. Not until you have reached this stage in the 
study of the art of reading, will you fully comprehend 
its extent and value. You may have been accustomed to 
look upon it as merely a graceful mechanical accomplish- 
ment ; you will now discover that it is a high mental 
attainment, demanding the cultivation and exercise of 
the loftiest intellectual powers. 



96 



Letter XVI. 

PAUSE— PUNCTUATION— MANAGEMENT OF THE 
BREATH— INFLECTION. 

Thorough understanding of what you read is essential to 
the right use of emphasis in reading. You must know 
perfectly what you are going to express, or it will be 
impossible to give to it the true expression. But not 
only is it necessary for you to understand — you must 
seize the meaning with such rapidity that the concep- 
tion of the author must be apprehended in the 
momentary interval between the entrance of the words 
at the eye and their exit through the lips. Eemember 
that this is all the time allowed to you when you read 
aloud something you had not previously studied. Yet, 
immeasurably brief as is this interval, it suffices for 
ordinary purposes, and for compositions not pregnant 
with thought. But, to accomplish it, you must learn to 
keep your eye always in advance of your lips ; you must 
actually read one line while uttering another. If you 
did not so, how possibly could you give the right expres- 
sion to the beginning of the sentence, knowing not the 
purport of the entirety of it ? In practice, the art is 



XVI. PAUSE PUNCTUATION, &C. 97 

not so difficult as it appears in description. The worst 
readers exercise it to some extent, and experienced 
readers do it so unconsciously, that they are probably not 
aware what a wonderful process it is. I can suggest to 
you no rules for its study or acquisition. I can recom- 
mend only persevering practice. At first you will 
doubtless find yourself grievously in fault in your 
reading. You will commence sentences, especially if 
long, with expression utterly unsuited to the meaning as 
developed at their close. When you find this, try back 
and read the same sentence rightly, with the aid of your 
better knowledge of its purport. By degrees you will 
discover that eye and mind will learn to travel onward 
in advance of the lips so far and fast that, when one 
sentence is concluded, the next will be given to your 
tongue fully prepared for utterance. 

It will not do to pause while your eye thus travels 
onward, unless the matter you read admits of it. A 
long pause is extremely unpleasing to hearers, for it 
conveys an impression of incapacity to pronounce a 
word, or indicates a suppressed stammer. But, with 
cautious exercise of judgment, you might avail yourself 
of the proper pauses to lengthen the period allowed 
for the forecasting of the eye, where a sentence is before 
you of unusual length or complication. The judicious 
use of this contrivance I must leave to your own good 
taste and correct ear ; there is no fixed measure of 
it — nothing that can be reduced to ride. 

I come now to those pauses, or rests in the flow of 
speech, which in printing and writing are clumsily repre- 
sented by stops. The signs are eight, viz. the comgaa, 
the semicolon, the colon, the full stop, the note of 
interrogation, the note of admiration, the hyphen, and 

F 



D8 



THE ART OF READING. 



the dash. Sehoolbooks and other treatises on elocution 
give you explicit directions for the measurement of 
these various signals, telling you that you should count 
one for a comma, two for a semicolon, and so forth. 
Such rules are worthless ; they fail utterly in practice. 
So various are the rests required in reading, that no 
variety of notation would serve to indicate them. The 
comma may be repeated half-a-dozen times in a sentence, 
and on each occasion a different length of pause may be 
required. So it is with the other " stops"; they tell 
you, in fact, nothing more than that the author, or 
rather the printer, is of opinion that at the points of 
insertion the sentence is divisible into parts more or less 
perfectly. They are introduced with little or no 
reference to their use in reading aloud — how little, 
indeed, you might discover by taking up the first 
book that lies before you and reading the first page 
at which you chance to open it. You will find that the 
stops do not help you much and often are a hindrance. 
Authors exhibit the strangest vagaries in punctua- 
tion. You would be amused and amazed at many of 
the manuscripts and proofs that vex the eyes of editors. 
Often the stops are scattered with such profusion that 
half-a-dozen words are nowhere permitted to live in 
harmony without this forcible separation from their 
fellows. Sometimes the right "stop" is inserted in 
the wrong place, as if of malice aforethought ; by 
others, the wrong stop is continuously employed in the 
right place— as a colon where there should be a comma, 
to the infinite vexation of sensitive readers, who pull up 
suddenly or make preparation for a halt, just where 
they ought not to do so. You must know that the 
follies of the author in this respect are usually corrected 



XVI. PAUSE PUNCTUATION, &C. 



99 



by the compositor, or the press-reader ; but the author 
is not always content to abide by that better judgment, 
and insists on his own punctuation being preserved ; 
and even if so corrected, the work is necessarily done 
imperfectly, and. as I have previously stated, with a 
view to the division of the sentences rather than to 
the reading of them aloud. 

For these reasons you must make your own punctua- 
tion both in place and in length of pause, being guided 
by the meaning of the words, by your sense of fitness, by 
your ear. and by the requirements of your chest and 
throat. These last should be permitted to prevail as 
rarely as possible, because, if not also called for by the 
meaning of what you are reading, they fall disagreeably 
upon the ears of the listener ; and it is important that 
you should early leam to regulate your breathing, so that 
you may inspire at the moment when otherwise you 
would make a pause of equal length. Now this is an 
art to be acquired by practice, and which I may as well 
describe to you in this place, as being intimately 
connected with the pauses intended to be indicated by 
punctuation. 

The management of the breath is almost as needful to 
good reading as the management of the voice. The 
primary requisite is to draw breath as ^frequently as 
possible, and this you can accomplish only by making 
your breath hold out as long as possible. How to do 
this ? First, when you draw breath, fill your chest ; 
then, expire slowly, and do not breathe again until 
exhausted. There is an art in breathing properly, 
and it consists in breathing through the nose, and not 
through the mouth. The uses of drawing breath 
through the nostrils are many. The air is filtered in 
F 2 



100 



THE ART OF READING. 



its passage by the bristles that line the nostrils, and 
the particles of dust floating about are thus prevented 
from touching the sensitive organs of the throat and you 
are saved many an inconvenient cough : the air traverses 
a small, long and very warm tube, before it reaches the 
windpipe, by which its temperature is raised to that of 
the delicate membranes on which it there impinges, and 
thus their irritation, or even inflammation, is prevented. 
If you draw breath through the mouth, the air rushes in, 
carrying with it impurities that make you cough by their 
contact with the mucous membrane, while the cold irri- 
tates the delicate organ, and produces temporary incon- 
venience, possibly a protracted illness. There is another 
result of breathing through the mouth, peculiarly un- 
pleasant to readers and speakers, the drying of the lips, 
tongue and throat, an effect produced also by nervous- 
ness, and which is the consequence of the contracting 
and the closing of the ducts from the salivary glands. 
Accustoni yourself, therefore, to draw breath through 
the nostrils, and although it is a more lengthened process, 
and requires a longer pause, it is far less disagreeable to 
a listener than the gasps, followed often by a tickling 
and a cough, that are exhibited by the speaker who 
breathes through his mouth. 

Then, having taken your breath rightly, there is some 
art in the right use of it. You must husband it with 
care, and give no more of it to each distinct sound you 
utter than is necessary for its perfect expression. You 
can regulate the sound only by regulating the breath. 
You will be surprised to find how practice will strengthen 
you in this performance, and you may try your progress 
in it from time to time by counting one, two, three, &c. at 
measured intervals, and noting how many numbers you 



XVI. PAUSE PUNCTUATION, &C. 101 

can thus count with a single breathing. The use of 
this will soon be apparent to you in practice, for you will 
come to the end of your voice before you have arrived 
at the end of the sentence, and then you will be com- 
pelled to mar its meaning and annoy your audience by 
pausing when the sense of what you are reading requires 
that you should link the words closely together. But, 
having acquired facility for extending one breathing over 
a long sentence, if need be, you are not required always 
to speak till no breath remains. On the contrary, you 
should seize every convenient opportunity for performing 
the operation in a right place, lest you should be com- 
pelled to do so in a wrong one. Choose such pauses as 
should be indicated by what is called the " full stop " 
in writing. Thus you will learn to enjoy the entire 
command of your voice, and the best practice for that 
purpose is to read daily a few pages, with the sole 
design of mastering the art I have endeavoured to 
describe. 

Nearly allied to Emphasis and Pause is Inflection. I 
mean by this term the rise and fall of the voice, a varia- 
tion essential to the avoidance of monotony and the 
securing of an attentive ear from your audience. Some 
skill is required for the right regulation of this. The 
limit within which your voice may range is not wide ; 
the movement must be determined, partly by what you 
read, partly by the ear. There are no rules to which 
you can safely trust for guidance. I can do little more 
to help you than tell you what to avoid. There is a 
frequent fault of which you should beware. Many 
persons, trying to escape from a level voice, fall into the 
still more unpleasant practice of speaking in waves ; that 
is to say, the voice is made to rise and fall by a regular 



102 



THE ART OF READING. 



swelling and sinking at precisely even periods — an 
utterance difficult to describe in words, but which you 
will doubtless recognise readily from this rude com- 
parison of it. The right use of Inflection is one of the 
most subtle ingredients in the art of reading. If it be 
judiciously used, however slightly, it gives a spirit and 
meaning to the words that win even unwilling ears. 
The voice raised at some fitting moment sends the 
thought straight into the mind that is opened expect- 
antly. Judiciously lowered, it touches the emotions. 
There is no fixed rule either for raising or dropping the 
voice. A vague notion prevails that the punctuation has 
something to do with it ; that you ought to lower the 
voice at the end of a sentence ; that a full stop should be 
notice to you, not only to halt, but to drop gradually 
down into silence. This is a grievous error and so 
common as to be almost a national fault. It is remark- 
ably shown in our manner of speaking, and this will 
serve as an excellent illustration of my meaning. The 
English usually drop their voices at the end of a sentence ; 
other nations, and the French especially, usual]y raise it. 
In other words, we talk with the downward inflection 
and they with the upward inflection. The consequence 
is, that their conversation appears much more lively 
than ours, and their talk is more readily intelligible 
to a foreigner than is ours. The last words of an 
Englishman's sentences are often unintelligible, for his 
voice falls until it dies away in a sort of guttural 
murmuring. And, as we talk, so too often do we read. 
We drop the voice at the end of every sentence, begin- 
ning the next sentence some half-a-dozen notes higher 
and several degrees louder. Now, the Art of Beading 
requires just the reverse of this. Instead of letting the 



XVI. PAUSE PUNCTUATION, &C. 



103 



voice decline towards the end of a sentence, the general 
rule should be to keep it up, and even slightly to raise 
it. Thus it is that the attention of an audience is 
sustained and a liveliness is imparted to your discourse 
'far beyond the apparent simplicity of the means 
adopted, Try it ; read a page, using the English down- 
ward inflection, and then read the same page, using the 
upward inflection at the end of eaeh sentence, and mark 
the contrast upon your own energies. Ask a friend to 
do the like and listen ; you will instantly recognise the 
superior life and vigour infused into the composition, 
Eepeat the experiment in a large room, before a 
numerous audience, and you will find that, while it is 
very difficult for the ear to seize the words uttered in 
the falling inflection, the entire sentence is clearly and 
readily caught by the most distant listener when the 
rising inflection is used — that is to say, when the voice 
is made to rise, instead of being permitted to fall, at the 
end of a sentence. 

I remember once being at a rehearsal at Drury-lane ? 
with one of our great actors. I expressed surprise that 
he did not speak louder, as it seemed to me that his 
voice was not raised much beyond that of ordinary 
conversation ; yet it filled the house and came back to 
us. He explained to me that it was really so. "K I 
were to speak twice as loud," he said, "I should not be 
heard half so well. To be heard by a large audience, 
you have only to speak slowly and to raise your voice 
at the end of every sentence." It was a lesson not to be 
forgotten, and having tried and proved it, I recommend 
it to you. 



101 



Letter XVII. 

ATTITUDE— INFLUENCE OF THE MENTAL OYER THE 
PHYSICAL POWERS. 

The hints that have been offered so far relate to 
reading generally ; they are designed to assist yon in the 
development of those physical powers, withont which 
intellectual capacity fails to express itself. The 
right management of the voice is as necessary as the 
right understanding of that which the voice is to utter. 
Both are indispensable ; both require persistent study ; 
neither will compensate for defects in the other, and, in 
its influence on a miscellaneous audience, it is doubtful 
whether a reading mechanically good would not surpass a 
reading intellectually good. However this may be, do 
not place too much reliance upon the virtues you mentally 
infuse into your reading, to the neglect of the graces with 
which voice and manner will invest them. To read well, 
you must do both well. 

For the purpose of controlling your breath, and thus 
governing your voice, some attention must be given to 
attitude, and fortunately the position that is best adapted 
for utterance is that which is most easy to yourself and 



XVII, ATTITUDE. &C. 



105 



most agreeable to your audience. You should sit as 
uprightly as possible, or, if that be inconvenient, inclining 
very gently in the chair, the arms well thrown back, so 
as to give to the chest the fullest and freest expansion, 
and the head erect, so as to remove all pressure from the 
throat, where the delicate organs of the voice are playing. 
Not only do you thus exercise them with the greatest 
ease to themselves? but the sounds they produce are 
sent most audibly and distinctly to the furthest range of 
listeners. If you stoop forward, bending over your book, 
you cannot take a full breath, you cannot regulate 
your tones, you are unable to make your breathing 
coincident with the necessary pauses of the discourse, 
and your voice is sent down, to be muffled against your 
book, or stifled upon the floor, instead of being flung 
forth in a flowing stream of sound, to reach the ears of 
the most distant of the assembled circle. If you want 
to measure the amount of voice required to touch those 
furthest from you, the process is easy enough. There 
needs no intricate calculation, not even a mental estimate 
of space. Nothing more is needed than that you should 
look at the person who stands the most distant of those 
you desire to address, and instinctively, without effort 
or calculation of your own, your voice will take the 
pitch of loudness requisite to make him hear. 

But you will probably say that, however useful these 
rules for attitude may be to speakers, they are inappli- 
cable to readers ; for how, you will ask, is it possible, 
sitting upright or reclining gently back in a chair, with 
head erect, to read a book without holding it straight 
before the eye and consequently eclipsing your face 
entirely ? I confess there is some difficulty in accomplish- 
ing this feat, at first, but it is to be acquired with a 
f 3 



106 



THE ART OF READING. 



little practice. Two processes are requisite to the 
performance. First, yon must learn the art of keeping 
the eye and mind in advance of the tongue ; and, 
secondly, you must learn, while the head is erect, to read 
by turning the eyes down to a book placed below you, 
but yet at the angle most convenient to sight and which 
you must ascertain at the moment, for it varies with the 
nature of the composition, the size of the type, and 
even the quality of the paper. If your audience did 
not look at you when reading, this position of the eye 
would, if unrelieved, be inconvenient only to yourself. 
But an audience must be looked at by you, as well as 
look at you, or you will not secure their attention. A 
reader, you must remember, is not a mere conduit pipe, 
to convey the words of the book to the minds of the 
listeners : a good reader communicates directly with his 
audience ; he makes the ideas of the author so much 
his own, when transmitted through his mind, that they 
come from him animated and inspired by something of 
his own living spirit, so that the minds of the listeners 
feel themselves in communion with his mind, and there 
is a consciousness that the intercourse is intellectual and 
not mechanical merely. Strive, then, that your reading 
shall sound and seem as little like reading, and as much 
like speaking, as possible : give to what you say, and to 
the manner of saying it, the air of being the utterance 
of your own mind rather than the mere repetition of the 
production of another mind, and this you can accomplish 
only by repeatedly raising your eyes from the book and 
looking at the audience while you complete the sentence 
which the eye and the mind, travelling before the tongue, 
have committed to the memory. 

I have now said all that occurs to me as likely to be 



XVII. ATTITUDE, &C. 



107 



useful to you respecting that portion of the Art of 
Beading which depends upon the physical processes. But 
in the cultivation of these powers you must not forget 
that they are intimately allied with the intellectual 
processes. No single movement of the smallest muscle 
employed in the art of reading is purely mechanical ; it 
is governed more or less by mental emotions, with which 
it vibrates in a mysterious sympathy you can neither 
prompt nor control. The voice will express in tones and 
in tremors the feelings that are flashing through the 
brain, and the main object of all your studies and 
strivings will be, not so much to acquire something 
new, as to remove the bad habits by which the natural ex- 
pression is impeded. You will have a great deal more 
to Mftleam than to learn. Your endeavour from the 
beginning should be to go back to nature — to have faith 
in her — to find out what in your practice is artificial, and 
what is true, and by persevering effort to emancipate 
yourself from the slavery of habit. In these suggestions 
I have sought to consult nature alone, and I have given 
very little attention to the "rules " which professional 
writers and teachers have promulgated. I never met 
any person who had profited by them. It is not that 
it can be asserted of any of them, examined individually, 
that they are erroneous ; they err only in that they 
attempt to reduce to rule an art which cannot, like 
science, be reduced to rule. I challenge the proof to be 
thus tried. Let a page of any book be read strictly 
according to the rules of any treatise on, or teacher of, 
elocution ; it will be found intolerably starched, ungainly 
and stupid. Continually the infinite variations of the 
thought to be expressed will enforce a departure from 
the letter of the rule. Either the rule must bend to 



108 



THE AET OF READING. 



the meaning, or tlie meaning will be murdered by the 
rule. Are not rules, that exist only by elasticity such 
as this, more likely to hinder than to help ? Kenection 
and experience have combined to convince me that so it 
is, and therefore I have ventured, in defiance of the 
authorities, to throw aside the conventional code and 
have endeavoured to trace out for you a new path to the 
Art of Eeading. 

There is danger always, and with all of us, that we 
may exaggerate the importance of any subject that has 
engaged much of our attention, and therefore I am 
desirous of strengthening the views I have been so many 
years trying to promulgate, as to the necessity for making 
the art of reading a branch of education in all schools, 
and by all classes, by reference to some higher 
authorities. I therefore cite two passages from two of 
our ablest journals, which express, in more powerful 
language than I can command, very nearly the views 
I have long advocated. The first is from the Saturday 
Review. 

But the clergy are not the only class who read badly, though, 
since reading forms so large a portion of their duty, their 
deficiencies are especially conspicuous. Bad reading is far more 
common than good, among all classes, from the charity children 
whose monotonous twang in the responses of the Liturgy tortures 
every sensitive ear, up to the most refined and best educated. It 
is not merely that, in the art of reading aloud, as in every other 
application of knowledge to practice, the number of those who 
attain excellence is a very small percentage on the total number 
of persons who practise it at all. The point in which the art of 
reading seems exceptional is, that the average skill in doing what 
every one does more or less is disgracef ully small. One reason for 
this is obvious enough — it is not considered a part of education to 
teach children to read aloud. Some few schools, perhaps, are 
exceptions to this rule of universal neglect ; and there are men 
who call themselves professors of elocution, and undertake to 



XVII. ATTITUDE, &C. 



109 



remedy a mischief which need never have been done. But in the 
great majority of instances, a boy, during his school years, not 
only is not taught how to read well, but actually learns to read 
badly. Construing Greek and Latin authors, in the orthodox 
school fashion, is about the best possible means for giving a boy 
the habit of reading as if he was a mere machine, neither knowing 
nor caring for the sense of the words his tongue is uttering. 
Three or four words of Latin, then the corresponding English, 
alternated through several sentences with blunders and stoppages 
intermixed, or, at best, a hesitation every now and then because 
he is not quite sure of the right order or right meaning of the 
words before him — this is the style of reading which a schoolboy 
practises, day after day for several years of his life, just at the 
age when habits are most easily and permanently formed. T-his 
may be necessary, possibly, to the acquirement of Greek and 
Latin, but at any rate, there is no doubt of the effect produced as 
regards the reading of English ; and on the face of it, one might 
almost wonder that any one who has passed through the ordinary 
education of a gentleman ever so far escapes the evil influence of 
it as to read aloud even respectably well. The same remarks are 
true of girls learning modern languages, though perhaps in a less 
degree. The construing period does not last so long with them, 
and the construing method is not so rigorously applied to French 
and German. One does not, however, hear ladies read aloud so 
often as men : and the different quality of the female voice makes 
their defects less striking to the ear than the bad reading of 
rougher-toned men. The first requisite towards obtaining a 
generation able to read clearly and intelligibly is a little care in 
schoolmasters and other teachers. Let the pupils construe, if it 
must be so, their Latin lessons in a manner heart-breaking to 
those who care for the sense or sound of the author's language ; 
but then let them be also accustomed to read the same or other 
books as they ought to be read — with due attention to stops, 
construction and emphasis. If this is not done universally — if 
boys are not made to read history, notes and references on the 
lessons before them, and everything else that comes in their way, 
in an intelligent manner — special instruction in elocution will be 
of very little use, particularly if it is deferred till the boy has 
become a man. He has then to conquer the habits which have 



110 



THE ART OF HEADING. 



grown upon him ever since he first went to school — perhaps 
fifteen years before — and the task is become a difficult, almost a 
hopeless one. 

But it is worth while to inquire why people need to be taught 
the art of reading at all. What is the difference between speaking 
and reading? How is it that, for twenty persons whose tones 
and expression is natural enough when they are uttering their 
own thoughts in conversation, hardly one can read aloud in an 
intelligent and straightforward manner ? The explanation does 
not lie in the fact that a man, in speaking, uses his own words, 
and in reading, the words of another, for men do not seem to 
read their own writings any better than other people's. One of 
the commonest excuses made by clergymen for preaching 
extempore is, that they cannot deliver a written sermon with 
equal effect. The excuse is not altogether a valid one, for not a 
few masters of the art contrive to make their reading as effective 
as any speaking could be ; but no doubt it is more difficult so to 
do. Nor is the reason to be found in the restraint of natural 
motion and gesture imposed by the necessity of keeping the eye 
fixed, more or less continuously, on the book or paper to be read 
from ; for a person who can recite well is quite as rare as one who 
can read well. Even on the stage, where the first business of the 
performer is, or ought to be, elocution in its various branches, 
one very seldom hears a speech which consists of a simple narra- 
tion of facts, or the like, and is not strongly marked by some 
emotion or comic peculiarity, delivered in a natural manner. The 
difficulty of reading aloud, or of reciting, seems to consist in 
keeping to a fixed form of words which are not the spontaneous 
expression of the reader's thoughts. His mind is already occupied 
in gathering the actual words which the tongue is to utter — from 
the book in the one case, by means of the eye, from the memory 
in the other case — and finds some difficulty in attending at the 
same time to their meaning, and to the expression which ought 
consequently to be given to them. In speaking, on the contrary, 
words and expression all form part of the clothing given to the 
thoughts. A man knows what he means by the words in which 
he gives utterance to his own thought, and the tone and emphasis 
are the audible expression of that meaning. Of course he may 
be at a loss for words, or he may form a wrong notion of the im- 



XVII. ATTITUDE, &C. 



Ill 



pression that will be produced on others by certain words and 
tones ; but to his own satisfaction, at least, he can give his words 
the expression he intends, and he cannot fail to know what he 
means to convey by them. In reading, however, the case is very 
different. The reader has first to take in the words before his 
eyes, and then to consider what meaning they are intended by the 
author to have, in order, that he may give the proper tone and 
expression to his utterance of them. A good reader, then, is 
one who keeps his mind continually engaged in discovering the 
sense of the words on the page, and so making them his own as 
to give them the expression which he attaches to them. It is of 
course bad reading, in the judgment of the hearers, when the 
reader gives to the words an expression which they think unsuit- 
able ; but the reader himself is striving to perform his task 
properly, and deserves some credit for the attempt, however 
unsuccessful. Really bad reading is when the reader's mind is 
almost passive, employing only energy enough to decipher the 
printed letters and instruct the voice how to make corresponding 
sounds. Good reading is, in truth, no slight mental exertion — 
bad reading is as nearly mechanical as any process can be to which 
the mind must bring a certain amount of knowledge. The latter, 
some may think, must be far less trouble, and the former not 
worth the pains that must be bestowed. But it fortunately 
happens, to counterbalance this, that bad reading, if easier to the 
mind, is far more tiring to the body, because it does not exercise 
equally what, for want of a more appropriate word, we must call 
the muscles of the voice. Some are used too much, some not at 
all, and the result is speedy fatigue. The voice of a good reader, 
on the contrary, is worked in obedience to an intelligent and 
ever-active will, and therefore in the manner calculated to pro- 
duce and preserve the greatest efficiency. Practical proof of the 
advantage of good reading may be seen by any one who has a 
clerical acquaintance. Cceteris paribus, a bad reader will always 
be more fatigued by a Sunday morning service than a good 
one. 

I reserve the other for my next letter ; this one having 
already exceeded the permitted space. 



112 



Letter XVIIL 

ILLUSTRATIONS. 

I closed my last letter with an extract from the 
Saturday Review, I commence the present letter with 
the promised extract from the Times, both being cited 
because they teach, in better language and with more 
powerful argument than I can command, some of the 
lessons I have endeavoured to convey to you. They 
would have appeared more appropriately in an earlier 
portion of these letters ; but, inasmuch as those journals 
did not treat of the subject until long after attention had 
been directed to it here. I am obliged to cite them out 
of place, if I cite them at all. Thus, then, the Times 
treats of Reading, as a necessary part of education for 
the Church. It is not less necessary to training for the 
Law, and every word here applied to the Clergy is 
equally applicable to the Lawyers. 

This strange discrepancy between the means and the end, 
between the labours of our Bishops and the ridiculus mus we too 
often hear in our churches, is all the stranger, inasmuch as a 
measure of success is actually attained when the matter happens 
to be in voluntary hands. When a congregation has the appoint- 
ment of its own minister, it generally takes care to choose a man 



XVIII. ILLUSTRATIONS. 113 

with a good voice, manner and utterance. Indeed, the con- 
gregations that happen to possess this power are invariably the 
objects of much clerical satire for their bad taste in preferring a 
man whom they can hear and understand. Again, when a body 
of trustees have an interest in filling a pulpit well, or when it is 
a great object to the incumbent himself that the sittings should 
be taken, the nominee, whether incumbent or curate, is generally 
found to be a man with power of eloquence or grace of elocution. 
The incumbent of a good London church or a fashionable chapel 
is generally beset with stout healthy gentlemen from the country, 
whose life-ambition it has been to astonish a well-bred audience 
with the majesty or the sweetness of their tones. His practised 
ear detects the vulgar or the ridiculous in the provincial 
Boanerges, and the result is that if the delivery in our West-end 
churches is often feeble or monotonous, it seldom shocks by the 
extravagance of its errors. So elocution is made an object here, 
and downright vulgarity, at least, is excluded. On all occasions, 
indeed, where there is a power of choice, the voice and tone are 
among the first things considered. An ordinary congregation 
will tolerate almost anything in the clergyman ; the one thing 
they cannot bear is a dull droning, stupid, heartless style, indi- 
cating that the reader does not himself feel what he reads, or 
heartily believe what he teaches. A clergyman may have been a 
toper, a gourmand, a flirt, a liar, a sportsman, a dancer of the 
most forbidden dances, or intemperate in his language — almost 
anything that society and public opinion reprobate ; but if he has 
a good voice and graceful elocution, he will be elected over an 
utterly respec table grinder of prayers and sermons, and he will 
fill the church which the other would empty. The rural 
clergy console themselves for the empty pews by telling terrible 
stories of their Dissenting rivals, and terrible stories they can 
tell. We could fill a volume with schismatical biographies of a 
peculiar character. Certainly it is not pleasant for a learned 
Oxford divine, a first-class man, an essayist, perhaps a tutor and 
a professor, to be beaten out of the field by a drunkard, a rogue, 
a polygamist, or a downright impostor. But, granting the truth 
of all these scandals on the side of Dissent, they have a fearful 
recoil on the Establishment. How is it that good Mr. Mumble, 
the scrupulous Dr. Drone, and even the sanctimonious and 



114 



THE AET OF READING. 



exemplary Mr. Snarl, are vanquished in their own legal domains 
by such ignominious opponents ? The answer is simple enough. 
The drunkard, the rogue, the polygamist, and the impostor talk 
as if, for the time at least, they felt what they said, and talk so 
well that the hearers forget all they know about them. They 
rise above themselves when they preach and pray. The rector 
sinks as much below himself. . . . Alas for the congre- 
gations ! Who is there to look after them ? Did the Bishops 
but know with what anxiety they flock to church to hear for the 
first time the College Fellow, or the purchaser of the reversion, 
or my Lord's nephew, under whom they are to sit, perhaps for a 
generation ! Smile as we will, it really is no joke to poor Hodge, 
the ploughman, or Giles, his master, to be tied to one reader and 
preacher every Sunday of his mortal career, when that reader 
and preacher reads and preaches very ill. It really is a great 
tyranny. If we read in the life of Nero that he bound his Senate, 
under pain of death, to assemble in his palace once a month to 
sit out two hours of execrable fiddling, we should set it down as 
the last proof of patrician degradation and extinct tyranny. But 
all England is told that, as they value their immortal souls, they 
must sit out two hours, if not three, every Sunday of the regu- 
lation reading and preaching, be it the worst possible. It is true 
that bold spirits resent the bondage, and go after strange 
preachers, but they are laid under the ban for it, and excommu- 
nicated. They become Dissenters. "Why ? Simply because they 
refuse to come Sunday after Sunday to hear the worship of the 
Almighty done, as they cannot but feel it, by as mere a machine 
as the barrel organ in the gallery. Cannot the Bishops do more ? 
It is said, indeed, that some of the Bishops can neither read nor 
preach themselves ; that the examining chaplains don't know 
what good reading is ; and that, even were it attempted to apply 
a test, the test would not be uniform throughout dioceses. Such 
objections, however, apply to all tests and examinations, and,' 
indeed, to all superintendence, for there is no point upon which 
it is easy to obtain a sufficient and uniform rule. All we know 
is, that the existing kindness to the candidates is cruelty to the 
people. Better license a man to poison the bodies of Englishmen 
with drugs which he does not know how to mix or apply than 
confer upon him a sacred mission and absolute authority to lead the 



XVIII. ILLUSTRATIONS. 



115 



prayers his heart does not join in, and to win souls which he will 
really drive away. The priest is for the people, not the people 
for the priest ; and if the priest be either physically or morally 
unfit for his work, let it be found out in time, and let him take 
to some trade which will require neither heart nor voice. 

I proceed now to illustrate by examples tlie hints I 
have been suggesting. But I must preface my remarks 
by the assurance that very little indeed can be done for 
you upon paper. It is extremely difficult, more so even 
than I had anticipated when I commenced the task, to 
exhibit by any form of words, by any conventional signs, 
by any ingenuity of type, the manner in which, ideas 
should be expressed, or the voice governed. Only by an 
intelligent listener freely pointing out your faults, or a 
practised reader setting you an example, can you hope 
to learn much more than that in which, alone it was my 
purpose to assist you, namely, in knowledge of what 
you ought to do, leaving the learning of how to do it to 
your own sagacity, the judicious aid of a friend, or the 
lessons of a tutor. The few illustrations which I am 
enabled so imperfectly to produce are, therefore, not 
designed so much to instruct you how to read as to make 
more apparent to you and impress on your memory the 
suggestions I have thrown out for your guidance in self* 
education in the art of reading. Had I desired more 
than this, I could not have accomplished it. Words 
will not express tones. No description will convey the 
right measure of emphasis, or the delicate inflexions of 
the voice. Clearly comprehending the narrow limits 
within which the following lessons can aid you, I will 
ask you to accompany me, not in thought merely, but 
with voice, reading aloud the passages cited, in the 
manner indicated. Observe that italic is used where 
slight emphasis is required ; small capitals where 



116 



THE ART OF READING. 



great stress is to be laid upon the word ; the ordinary 
"points" or "stops" will indicate the pauses ; the 
hyphen [ - ] a passage in the nature of an interjection, 
breaking the chain of the sentence and to be read in a 
different tone so as distinctly to mark the interval ; and 

the dash [ ] will mark the pauses that are not to 

be measured by the regular "stops." 

You will remember that the rules that have been 
suggested for observance in good reading were arranged 
under the titles of Tone, Emphasis, Pause, Inflection. 
The following illustrations are designed to exhibit all of 
these. 

I purposely select familiar passages. Take, then, a 
part of the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, which 
Thelwall (the elder) considered to be one of the most 
difficult of readings, and an excellent test of the capacity 
or progress of his pupils. 

First, read three or four verses right on, without any 
pause or expression whatever, merely pronouncing the 
words rightly. As thus : 

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth and 
the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the 
face of the deep and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of 
the waters and God said Let there be light and there was light 
and God saw the light that it was good and God divided the 
light from the darkness, and God called the light Day and the 
darkness he called Night And the evening and the morning were 
the first day. 

This is a starting point from which you can measure 
the effects produced by the various kinds of expression. 

Then read the same passage with pauses, but still 
without emphasis or tone. As thus : 

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 

And the earth was without form, and void ; and darkness was 



XVIII. ILLUSTRATIONS. 



117 



upon the face of the deep ; and the Spirit of God moved upon 
the face of the waters. 

And God said, Let there be light : and there was light. 

And God saw the light, that it was good ; and God divided the 
light from the darkness. 

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called 
Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. 

You will hence learn the precise value of those pauses 
which are so imperfectly indicated in writing and 
printing by punctuation. You will also discover the 
imperfections of our limited scale of "stops," and how 
impossible it is to observe them strictly. Above they 
are presented precisely as they appear in the authorised 
edition of the Bible. Observe the rule laid down by the 
grammars, that you should count one for a comma, two 
for a semicolon, and so forth, and see how miserably 
it fails to express the meaning. Bead the same passage 
now with the natural pauses, as required by the sense, 
and you will at once recognise the justice of the complaint 
preferred against the artificial system of punctuation. 
In the absence of any established series of signs for 
pauses, I will indicate them, — though imperfectly, I 
fear, — by lines between the words, the various lengths 
of which will rudely measure the various lengths of 
pause. 

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth 

And the earth was without form and void and dark- 
ness was upon the face of the deep and the Spirit of God 

moved upon the face of the waters And God said Let 

there be light and there was light And God saw the light 

that it was good And God divided the light from the 

darkness And God called the light Day — and the darkness 

he called Night And the evening and the morning were the 

first day. 

Observe that, so far, your reading must be carefully 



118 



THE ART OF READING. 



limited to pronunciation and pause, purposely avoiding 
emphasis and variations of the voice. You should now 
read the same passage again, as- before, but introducing 
emphasis. The words to be emphasised are printed in 
italic, small capitals and CAPITALS, according to the 
less or more of stress to be put upon them. 

In the beginning GOD created the heaven and the earth 

And the earth was without form and void and darkness 

was upon the face of the deep and the Spirit of GOD moved 

upon the face of the waters And God said Let there be 

LIGHT !■ and there was light And God saw the light 

■ that it was good And God divided the light from the 

darkness — ■ — And God called the light day — and the darkness he 

called night- —And the evening and the morning were the first 

day. 

You will now have learned the effect of emphasis. 
Eepeat the experiment, adding to pause and emphasis 
the observance of tone, according to the hints given in 
a former letter. But it is impracticable to represent or 
even to suggest tone by any signs. I can only, therefore, 
so far prompt you by saying that the natural tone in 
which to express a grand and solemn theme is deep, 
full, and rich as you can make it. Indeed, if you feel 
what you utter, the tone will, without an effort, express 
the emotion. 

Once again read the passage, observing all the former 
graces of pause, emphasis and tone, adding to them 
inflection of the voice, which may be compared to the 
swell of an organ. The rise and fall of the sounds you 
utter, their swelling or sinking according to the require- 
ments of the sense, are the crowning charm of good 
reading, for by them monotony is put to flight and the 
ears of the audience are caught and held. I have 
endeavoured to exhibit Inflection by some intelligible 



XVIII. ILLUSTRATIONS. 



119 



signs, but I have been unable to devise to my own 
satisfaction any that would be within the compass of a 
printing-office to produce. I must be content, therefore, 
with a running commentary upon the successive 
sentences. 

In the beginning GOD created the heaven and the earth. 

The voice should descend two or three notes at the 
word GOD, because it should be pronounced reverentially, 
and veneration expresses itself naturally in low rich 
notes. 

Then it should rise and be sustained evenly to the 
end, followed by a long pause. 

And the earth was without form and void and darkness was 

upon the face of the deep And the Spirit of GOD moved 

upon the face of the waters. 

Here the voice is to be sustained throughout with no 
inflection, not even falling at the close. Only observe 
the pauses and the emphasis. 

And GOD said Let there be LIGHT ! And there was 

light. 

Here the inflection changes thrice. Beginning with 
the tone and key of the previous sentence, these should 
be sustained to mark still more strongly the change 
to the tone of command, which should be uttered in 
a low and slow voice, very firmly, and with a marked 
stress on the word "Light." It is important to observe 
that this word should be uttered with the upward 
inflection : that is to say, with the voice elevated above 
the pitch used in the former part of the sentence. Then 
follows a long pause, and then, in a tone considerably 
lower, the concluding sentence, strongly emphasising 
"was," and gently dropping the voice (the downward 
inflection) to the end. 



120 



THE ART OF READING-. 



Then raise the voice to its former note for the next 
sentence. 

And God saw the light that it was good And God 

divided the light from the darkness And God called the light 

day — and the darkness he called night— And the evening and 

the morning were the first day. 

Here you should mark the distinction between the 
first part, "And God saw," &c., and the second part, 
"And God divided," &c., by a slight change in tone, 
the latter part being spoken half a note lower than the 
first ; and in both, the voice should gently fall at the 
close, the object being to break the monotony of a con- 
tinued narrative, and also to give more prominence by 
contrast to the sentence that follows, which also must 
be read in the same note throughout, relying for variety 
upon the emphasis and the pauses, which are very 
marked. Then comes a change. The narrative is 
completed ; the story is told ; you indicate this by a 
long pause, and then, in a different voice, descending 
one note at least, you conclude the passage. 

I am conscious of the inefficiency of this verbal and 
typical illustration of the suggestions I had previously 
thrown out, and I fear that it will not be very intelligible 
to you. The difficulty of doing what I had designed is 
far greater than I had anticipated ; and if you should 
find the lesson an obscure one, pass it over. I cannot, 
however, suffer it to rest here ; I must adduce some 
further illustrations, although I shall be enabled to be 
more brief in explanation of them, and shall not need the 
repetitions unavoidable for the first explanation, in 
writing, of that which speech alone can properly convey. 



121 



Letter XIX. 

ILLUSTRATIONS OF TONE, EMPHASIS AND PAUSE. 

Some further illustrations will be necessary to enable 
you to comprehend clearly the hints I have thrown out 
to you. I felt considerable misgivings whether the 
device I had adopted for exhibiting the variations of 
utterance by help of the printer's art would not more 
puzzle than assist the reader. It is satisfactory to learn, 
however, that the plan has been sufficient for its purpose, 
and that readers have found no difficulty in following 
the instructions so conveyed. The same notation will 
be preserved throughout the following illustrations, But 
it will not be necessary to repeat the practice of succes- 
sive readings of the same passage, each introducing an 
additional ornament, as in the lesson contained in the 
last letter. If that be read eight or ten times, strictly 
observing the method proposed, you cannot fail to arrive 
at the most perfect comprehension of the nature as well 
as the value of each of those requisites to the Art of 
Reading. I shall now, therefore, merely present the 
illustrations as scored for practice, and then endeavour to 
state the reasons for such readings ; and those reasons 

a 



122 



THE ART OF READING. 



will often serve as examples of former remarks ; for, let 
it be a firm faith with you, that unless you can assign a 
reason for reading a passage in one way rather than in 
another way, you cannot be a good reader — you will 
read only by imitation and not by the impulse of your 
own mind. 

And here I may tell you an anecdote that has been 
conveyed to me. which is interesting as confirmatory of 
an observation, made in a former letter, to the effect 
that, if a person reads badly, it is because he does not 
understand what he reads. That so it is appears from 
the fact, that almost everybody talks rightly. Barely 
do we hear the wrong emphasis in conversation ; yet the 
very man who gives to every word he utters the right 
expression, when he is talking, will give the wrong 
expression to three-fourths of his words when he is 
reading. The reason of this strange defect is, that when 
he talks he understands what he is saying, and the voice 
echoes the mind : when he reads, either his mind is not 
at work upon the words, or it does not catch at the 
moment the sense of what he reads, and it becomes 
a mere mechanical operation — an utterance by rote — 
the words going in at the eye, and coming out at the 
tongue, without passing through the intelligent mind. 

My informant is a sensible man, who has imbibed the 
modern heresy that reading is an accomplishment at 
least as desirable, and likely to be as useful in life, as 
singing, and accordingly he has spared no pains to 
preserve his children from learning to read badly. His 
notion is — and he is right — that the bad habits acquired 
in childhood, in the performance of the merely mechanical 
art of sounding printed words, without understanding 
the ideas they are designed to convey, are the foundation 



XIX. ILLUSTRATIONS OF TONE, &C. 123 

of bad reading in after life. Assuming this, he has 
taken reading as the test and measure of intelligence in 
children. Esteeming so highly the art of reading, it is 
natural that any experiences of others on the subject 
should interest him, and that any hints of which he 
approved should be conveyed to his family. Thinking 
well of some which he has found in these letters, he 
has endeavoured to make a practical use of them, 
and they have been conveyed to his pupils as 
they appear here. The last letter, containing some 
illustrations of the previous suggestions, was accord- 
ingly produced to the family circle, when my in- 
formant bethought him that he would test the capacities 
of the little group around him by calling upon each to 
read the same passage from the Book of Genesis, marking 
in another volume, after the same fashion, the manner 
in which it was read by the child according to his own 
natural impulse, and then comparing them so as to 
ascertain how far the natural reading of the child 
coincided with the reading proposed in this essay. The 
test, he says, was perfect ; precisely in proportion to the 
little reader's natural intelligence was the reading more 
or less in unison with that here suggested. He found 
by further trial that, where they read wrongly, invariably 
they did not understand the meaning of what they were 
reading ; and one little boy, whose intelligence is remark- 
able, read the entire passage aloud for the first time, and 
his natural and untaught expression of it was found in 
almost precise accordance with the studied and reasoned 
mode of utterance which I had suggested. This experi- 
ment is interesting and valuable, because it was tried 
with children who had acquired no bad habits, and 
therefore it proves how much more nature does than art 

g 2 



124 



THE ART OF READING, 



can do towards making a good reader, and confirms the 
assertion that the art of reading consists mainly in 
understanding what you read. The experiment could 
not have been tried by adults, because none are to be 
found who have not acquired some evil habits of reading 
in their school-days, which cleave to them still, or which 
they have been enabled to conquer only by calling in 
the aid of art. 

I would earnestly recommend other parents to follow 
the example of my informant : — to keep vigilant guard 
over the first lessons in reading ; to prohibit the reading 
aloud of anything not understood, and to take misreading 
as a certain test of misunderstanding, Be sure that 
your pupil understands, and you may be assured that he 
will read. 

I make no apology for this interposition. I was 
treating an old subject after a new fashion, and, as I 
proceeded, not only did new thoughts upon it arise in my 
own mind, but suggestions were sent to me by readers 
who take an interest in the theme ; for my purpose, 
as I told you before, is not a formal treatise, but a 
friendly communication of the results of some experience 
and reflection on a subject whose real worth is only 
beginning to be acknowledged by the public. 

There is not a better illustration of the suggestions 
that have been submitted to you than Hamlet's famous 
soliloquy. Its very familiarity will, perhaps, recommend 
it for practice, because it is almost certain to be 
associated in your mind with readings at school, and 
you will more readily see the propriety of one by 
contrast with the other. I preserve the same notation. 

Eemember that Hamlet has just seen the spirit of 
his father, who has told him that his father-in-law 



XIX. ILLUSTRATIONS OP TONE, &C, 125 

was a murderer. He is not quite assured whether or 
no it was "an honest ghost; 55 if it was not "an 
instrument of darkness " tempting him to a horrible 
crime. He is sorely perplexed, seeking eagerly for some 
assurance that the story supernaturally imparted to him 
was true. 

Now, to read the soliloquy correctly, you must feel it, 
and to feel it you must throw your mind into much the 
same condition as that in which Hamlet's is supposed to 
be at the moment of thus communing with himself — - 
for it is a soliloquy, and not a speech addressed to others ; 
and a soliloquy is only thinking aloud, and should be so 
read or acted. It is manifest, moreover, that he had 
been contemplating suicide as a refuge from doubts and 
perplexities. The voice should be low in tone, with 
sadness of expression ; the utterances slow — the pauses 
long at first, for he is assumed to be reflecting. 

To be — or not to be that is the question — — 

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer 

The stings and arrows of outrageous fortune 

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles 

And— by opposing— ewe? them? -To DIE?— To 

SLEEP 

No more — and by a sleep to say we end 

The heart ache and the thousand natural shocks 

That flesh is heir to 'Tis a consummation 

Devoutly to be wished To die to sleep — 

To SLEEP! Perchance to DREAM ! — Aye, there's the 

rub — 

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come 

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil 

Must give us pause There's the aspect 

That makes calamity of so long a life. 

Eead slowly so far. The next passage should be read 
rapidly, for is not Hamlet pouring out quick coming 



126 



THE AET OF READING.- 



fancies, as if to strengthen his own failing resolution ? — 

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time 

The oppressor's wrong the proud man's contumely 

The pangs of disprized love the law's delay 

The insolence of office — and the spurns 

That patient merit of the unworthy takes 

When he himself might his quietus make 

With a bare bodkin ? Who would these fardels bear, 

To grunt and sweat under a weary life, 

Now more slowly — in an altered, lower, fuller tone, 
expressive of deeper feeling, and even of awe : 

But that the dread of something after death 

That undiscovered country — from whose bourn 

No traveller returns puzzles the will 

And makes us rather bear those ills we have 
Than fly to others that we know not of. 

Now change your tone again, for there is another strain 
of thought. He is half ashamed of his own fears and 
the conjurings of his own imagination, and he thus 

chides himself : — 

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all 

And thus the native hue of resolution 
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought — 
And enterprises of great pith and moment 
With this regard their currents turn away 
And lose the name of action. 

There is so much good practice in this exercise, that 
you should read it again and again until you are perfect 
in it. 



127 



Letter XX. 

ILLUSTRATIONS CONTINUED. 

From tlie same storehouse of illustration I present 
you with, another, in prose. Observe that, unlike the 
last, which was a soliloquy, this is addressed to others, 
and demands therefore quite a different tone, more rapid 
utterance, more firmness and decision in the entire 
expression of it. The last was a meditation merely, 
requiring long pauses between different trains of thought, 
and tones accommodated to the changing moods of the 
mind. The following address to the players is purely 
didactic, or, I should rather say, exhortative. The 
danger to be avoided here is dogmatism or sermonising. 
Hamlet is not laying down the law, like a judge, but 
advising, as a friend. He is not a pedagogue, but a 
gentleman, and you must assume the most gentlemanly, 
polite and polished manner of expression that you can 
command. If not satisfied with your reading of it at 
first, repeat it many times, until you feel that you read 
with ease and grace. Better still if you can find an 
intelligent friend to hear you read it, and tell you what 
you read well and where you are defective. I adopt 



128 



THE ART OF READING. 



the same notation as before. Observe, that this passage 
is not at all oratorical, It is not a a speech." You 
are not "to spout" it, but to ta Ik it with spirit and 
emphasis : — 

Speak the speech — I pray you — as I pronounced it to you 

trippingly on the tongue But if you mouth it — as many of 

our players do — I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines 

Nor do not saw the air too much with your hands thus 

but use all gently for in the very torrent tempest — 

and — as I may say whirlwind of your passion you must 

acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. 

Oh ! it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious — 

periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters — to very rags 

to split the ears of the groundlings who — for the most part — are 

capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb show and noise 

I could have such a fellow whipped for overdoing Termagant 

it out-Herod's Herod Pray you avoid it Be 

not too tame — neither but let your own discretion be your 

tutor suit the action to the word the word to 

the action with this special observance that you o'erstep 

not the modesty of nature— for anything so over-done is 

from the purpose of plating -whose end both at the first 

— and now was and is to hold — as 'twere — the 

mirror up to nature —to show virtue — her own feature 

• — scorn — her own image and the very age and body of the 

time his form and pressure Now this over-done or 

come tardy of though it make the unskilful laugh cannot 

but make the judicious — grieve the censure of one of which 

must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others 

Oh ! there be players — that I have seen play and 

heard others praise and that highly not to speak it 

profanely that neither having the accent of Christians nor 

the gait of Christian — Pagan — nor MAN — — have so strutted 

and bellowed that I have thought some of Nature's 

journeymen had made men and not made them well 

they imitated humanity so ABOMINABLY And let 

those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for 

them for there be of them that will themselves laugh 

to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too 



XX. ILLUSTRATIONS CONTINUED. 



129 



though — in the meantime some necessary question of the play 

be then to be considered that's VILLAINOUS and 

shows a most pitiful ambition in the FOOL that uses it. 

The next is also familiar to yon, although, it may be. 
yon never attempted to depart from the fashion of 
reading it acquired in your schoolboy days. Macbeth, 
contemplating an atrocious murder, is haunted by a 
whisper of conscience and by some " compunctious 
visitings of nature." His state is that of dreamy horror 
— his speech accords with it. There must be long 
pauses and deep tones, with an expression almost of 
pain in them. Observe also, that it is a soliloquy, and 
therefore to be uttered in a manner more distrait than 
was required in the last illustration. 

Is this a dagger that I see before me 

The handle toward my hand? Come let me clutch 

thee ! 

I have thee not and yet I see thee still — — 

Art thou not — fatal vision — sensible 

To feeling as to sight ? or art thou but 

A dagger of the mind a false creation 

Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain ? 

I see thee yet — in form as palpable 

As that which now I draw 

Thou marshalT st me the way that I was going 

And such an instrument / was to use 

Mine eyes are made the fools of th' other senses — - 

Or else worth all the rest 1 see thee still 

Here, with increasing terror in his tone, and with the 
growing rapidity of utterance that always accompanies 
terror. 

And on thy blade — and dudgeon gouts of BLOOD 

Which was not so before 

Here, a long pause, and an entire change of tone. To 
this point Macbeth has believed in the vision, and is 
profoundly awed by it ; and the tones should express 

g 3 



130 



THE AET OF READING. 



the horror and dread of the situation. But now he 
recovers his self-command ; his reason triumphs over his 
fancy ; he speaks in a lighter tone, and resuming a 
natural manner, he proceeds : 

There's no such thing- 
It is the bloody business which informs 
Thus to mine eyes 

Then another change ; his fancy flies to the tragedy he 
is about to enact ; the mention of the bloody business 
sends him out of himself ; he plays, as it were, with the 
thought, and conjures up all the images suggested by 
the occasion, for still he lingers and cannot quite make 
up his mind. "I dare not," even at this moment, is 
waiting upon "I would," and in the pause that attends 
his endeavour to "screw his courage to the sticking 
point," he says again, in a reflective, dreamy tone : 
Now o'er the one-half world 

Nature seems dead and wicked dreams abuse 

The curtain'd sleep now witchcraft celebrates 

Pale Hecate's offerings and withered murder 

Alarum'd by his sentinel — the wolf- — 

Whose howls his watch thus — with his stealthy pace — 

With Tarquin's ravishing strides towards his design 
Moves like a ghost. 

Again a change ; his resolve is somewhat strengthened 
now ; he has made up his mind to do it ; but not 
without still betraying his infirmity of purpose. In his 
agony of conflicting emotions he addresses the earth. 
The voice must be deep and sepulchral, but slightly 
tremulous : 

Thou sure and firm- set earth, 

Hear not my steps — which way they walk — for fear 

Thy very stones prate of my whereabout 

And take the present horror from the time 

Which now suits with it 



XX, ILLUSTRATIONS CONTINUED. 131 



Once more a change ; it is settled ; and each corporal 
agent is at length bent up to the terrible feat. 

Whiles I threat— he lives — 

Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives ■ — 

I go and it is done the bell invites me — — 

Hear it not Duncan for it is a knell 

That summons thee to heaven or to hell. 

I will now submit to yon a passage of very genuine 
humour. I warn you that you will find it difficult- 
reading. Great skill is required rightly to use the 
emphasis. You must lay some stress upon the touches 
of humour, sufficient to awaken the listener's attention 
by indicating to him that he is to look out for something 
good, and that he will find a meaning beneath the first 
and seeming import of the words, and yet not so much 
as to disturb the flow of the narrative. The greatest 
difficulty in reading narrative is to avoid monotony, and 
for this purpose the reader is frequently compelled to 
introduce variations of tone even when not strictly 
demanded by the matter. I can give you no rule for 
this ; you must be guided by good taste and the fineness 
of your ear. But in reading a cheerful narrative, such 
as this, the tone of the voice should be light and 
cheerful, and the whole manner sportive. Perhaps the 
best hint I could give you will be this — suppose yourself 
to be telling it as a good story to a party of sympathising 
friends, and try to forget, if possible, that you are taking 
it out of a book. 

By and by 1 reused myself — and went to the play There I 

found a virtuous boatsicain in his Majesty's service a most 

excellent man though I could have wished his trousers not 

quite so tight in some places — and not quite so loose in others 

who knocked all the little men's hats over their eyes though 

he was very generous and brave and who would'nt hear of 

anybody s paying taxes, though he was vert patriotic. He had 



132 



THE AET OF READING. 



a bag of money in his pocket — like spudding in the cloth and 

on that property married a young person in bed furniture with 

great rejoicings ; — the whole population of Portsmouth nine in 

number by the last census turning out on the beach to rub 

their own hands, — and shake everybody else's — and sing " Fill, 

fill." A certained dark complexioned swab — however — who 

wouldn't fill or do anything else that was proposed to him, and 

whose heart was openly stated to be as black as his figure head — 
proposed to two other swabs to get all mankind into difficulties ; 

— —which was so effectually done the swab family having 

considerable political influence that it took half the evening 

to set things right -and then it was only brought about through 

an honest little grocer, — with a white hat, black gaiters — and red 

nose — getting into a clock, with a gridiron and listening 

-and coming out and knocking everybody down from 

behind with the gridiron whom he could'nt confute with what 

he had overheard — — This led Mr. Wopsle who had never 

been heard of before coming in with a star and garter on 

as a plenipotentiary of great power direct from the Admiralty 

to say that the swabs were all to go to prison on the spot — and 
that he had brought the boatswain down the Union Jack — as a 

slight acknowledgement of his public services The boatswain, 

— unmanned for the first time — respectfully dried his eyes on the 

lack and then cheering up and addressing Mr. Wopsle as Your 

Honour, solicited permission to [take him by the fin Mr. 

Wopsle conceded his fin with gracious dignity was immediately 

shoved into a dusty corner, while everybody danced a hornpipe 

and — from that corner surveyed the public with a discontented eye. 

Remember that the purpose of these illustrations is 
to show you the right use of emphasis, pause, and tone, 
and these can only be exhibited, by a variety of passages 
on various subjects and in various styles. It is necessary 
to pass from gay to grave, and I ask you now to learn to 
read another well-known composition, " The Burial of 
Sir John Moore." The notation is continued. 

The reading of poetry, as such, will be the subject of 
a separate commentary hereafter. The following poem 



XX. ILLUSTRATIONS CONTINUED. 



133 



is submitted to you as a lesson in those graces of reading 
that are common to compositions of all kinds. The 
subject of this poem demands a serious and somewhat 
solemn mood of the reader's mind, and as the mind is 
so will be the tones of the voice, without an effort of 
your own. There is much use of emphasis and pause 
throughout, but little or no variation of manner. Great 
feeling should be thrown into it, and, when well read, 
there are few passages in English literature more effective. 
It never fails to touch, and therefore to please, an 
audience, however miscellaneous : — 

Not a drum was heard not a funeral note — 

As his corpse to the ramparts we hurried — 

Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot 

O'er the grave where our hero we buried. 

We buried him darkly at dead — of night— — - 

The sods with our bayonets turning 

By the struggling moonbeams' 1 misty light 

And the lantern — dimly burning 

No useless coffin enclosed his breast - 

Nor in sheet — -nor in shroud — we wound him 

But he lay like a warrior taking his rest 

With his martial cloak around him. 

Few and short were the prayers we said 

And we spoke not a word of sorrow 

But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead — 

And bitterly thought of the morrow. 

We thought as we hollowed his narrow bed 

And Bmooth'd down his lonely pillow 

How the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head 

And we far away on the billow ! 

Lightly they 11 talk of the spirit that's gone — — 
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him 

But little he'll reck if they let him sleep on ■ 

In the grave where a Briton has laid him. 



134 



THE ART OF READING. 



But half of our heavy task was done 

When the clock told the hour for retiring— 

And we heard the distant and random gun 
That the foe was sullenly firing. 

Slowly and sadly we laid him down 

From the field of his fame fresh and gory ! 

We carved not a line — we raised not a stone 

But we left him ALONE in his GLORY. 

The last two lines must be read with increased 
emphasis — very slowly — in a voice slightly elevated, 
and with a tone changed from sadness to triumph. 
Eepeat them many times until you are enabled to give 
to this fine verse its full expression. I can but faintly 
. convey it to you by types and dashes. 



135 



Lettee XXI. 

ILLUSTRATIONS CONTINUED. 

I ask you now to study one of the most difficult read- 
ings in our language, and therefore excellent practice. 
It was indeed never read to perfect satisfaction save by 
one actor and reader — Charles Kemble. To estimate 
its difficulties, you should first read it right on, as if it 
were an ordinary narrative, and regardless of effect. 
Then read it with care, designing to give to every word 
its right expression, and you will be surprised to find 
how dissatisfied you will be with your own per- 
formance. 

Observe, that it is an exquisite piece of pleasantry, by 
a professed wit. It is not humorous, nor farcical, but 
admirably fanciful and witty. Therefore it is not to be 
blurted out like a bit of fun, nor cracked like a joke, but 
uttered in the light, but still musical and graceful, strain 
of pleasantry, in the manner of a polished gentleman. 
A smile should just hover upon the lips, but without 
breaking into a laugh. Nor is it a soliloquy, but a story 
told to companions as cheerful and light-hearted as the 
teller. This manner of reading it I cannot illustrate ; I 



136 



THE AET OF BEADING. 



can only suggest it to you — the pauses and the emphasis 

I exhibit as before. 

Oh then I see — Queen Mab hath been with you 

She is the fairies' mid wife and she comes 

In shape no bigger than an agate stone 

On the forefinger of an alderman — — 
Drawn with a team of little atomies 

Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep — — 

Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners' legs 

The cover of the wings of grasshoppers 

Her traces of the smallest spider's web 

Her collars of the moonshine's watery beams 

Her whip of crickets bone the lash of film 

Her waggoner -a small gray-coated gnat 

Not half so big as a round little worm 

Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid 

Her chariot is an empty hazel nut 

Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub 

Time out of mind the fairies' coach-makers 

And in this state she gallops night by night 

Through lovers' brains and then they dream of love— 

On courtiers' knees that dream of court'sies straight 

O'er lawyers' fingers who straight dream on fees 

O'er ladies' lips who straight on kisses dream — 

Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues 

Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are — — 

Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose 

And then dreams he of smelling out a suit 

And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail 

Tickling a parson's nose as he lies asleep 

Then dreams he of another benefice 

Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck 

And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats 

Of breaches ambuscadoes Spanish blades — 

Of healths— five — fathoms — deep and then anon 

Drums in his ear at which he starts— and wakes 

And — being thus frighted swears a prayer or two 

And sleeps again This is that very Mab 

That plats the manes of horses in the night 



XXI. ILLUSTRATIONS CONTINUED. 137 



And bakes the elf lochs in foul sluttish lairs 

Which once untangled -much misfortune bodes 

This exquisite passage of wit is to be pronounced 
" trippingly on the tongue/ 5 and not to be mouthed. It 
should be spoken as lightly as such a light-hearted 
fellow as Mercutio would utter a piece of pleasantry. A 
smile should hover upon the lips, but never break into 
a laugh. As he is addressing three or four of his gay 
companions, and he turns from one to the other, as he 
points the illustration to them individually, it is not 
spoken right on, like a speech, but with frequent and 
long pauses, and with such slight hesitancies as serve to 
show that it is an invention of the moment and not a 
composition committed to the memory. The difficulty 
of the passage is very great and it grows with acquaint- 
ance. After twenty readings you will be less satisfied 
with your rendering of it than at the first. But, per- 
severe. It is because of its difficulty that I have selected 
it for an exercise. When you are able to read this well, 
you will have made great progress in the art. Do not 
leave it until you have mastered it. I do not desire that 
you should read this, or any other of these illustrations, 
twenty times in one day ; you would not improve by 
such rapid repetitions ; but read them three or four times 
at a sitting, and repeat them day by day for weeks, until 
you or your friendly counsellor shall be completely 
satisfied with the performance. 

I will now take you to another passage — short, but 
demanding extraordinary expression to give full effect to 
it. This, too, was deemed by Mr. Thelwall to be a test- 
passage, and he read it with wonderful power. Eightly 
to measure it, begin by reading it without any emphasis, 
simply uttering the words with the proper pauses. Then 



138 



THE ART OF READING. 



read it with emphasis, observing, as nearly as you can, 
the noting here given : — 

And the Lord sent Nathan unto David and he came unto 

him and said unto him There were two men in one city 

the one rich — and the other — poor The rich man had 

exceeding mant flocks and herds — but the poor man had nothing 

■ save one — little — ewe lamb which he had bought and 

nourished up and it grew up together with him and with his 

children it did eat of his own meat and drank of his own 

cup and lay in his bosom and was unto him as a daughter 

And there came a traveller unto the rich man and he 

spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd — to dress for 

the wayfaring man that was come unto him but took — the 

poor man's LAMB and dressed it for the man that was come 
unto him. 

And David's anger was greatly kindled against the man 

and he said to Nathan — " As THE LORD liveth — the man that 

hath done this thing shall surely DIE and he shall restore the 

lamb fourfold because he did this thing and because he 

had no pity" 

And Nathan said to David " THOU — —art the man ! " 

Few passages could be found in which so much 
emphasis is required in the same number of words ; 
indeed, it is difficult to distinguish the degrees, where 
most of them require some expression. Although typo- 
graphy limits me to three degrees of emphasis in the 
notation, the actual varieties required for a perfectly 
correct reading are much more numerous, but I must 
leave them to your own good taste and true ear. If 
you feel fully the meaning, you will probably give it the 
right degree of force in the utterance. But it is not varied 
emphasis alone that is demanded — you must observe 
the varieties of tone, which the notation does not attempt 
to indicate. The prophet begins with a narrative, but 
it is in the nature of a complaint. It is not a mere 
story told to amuse or inform, but he has a mission — 



XXI. ILLUSTRATIONS CONTINUED. 



139 



he is about to judge the guilty out of his own mouth, 
and the grandeur of his mission would influence the tone 
of the voice and the manner of the utterance. Slowly, 
gravely, almost solemnly, should you speak what Nathan 
spoke. Beginning thus, the contrast becomes more 
marked as you proceed. Sorrow should just tinge the 
tone at the opening ; but this should change to positive 
tenderness in the description of the lamb, not abruptly, 
but melting by imperceptible shades. This is excellent 
study, and you should persevere until the very marked 
tone of pity is perfectly acquired. You change again to 
sternness, coloured with indignation, when describing 
the conduct of the rich man. It should be the tone of 
anger not quite repressed — growing louder and some- 
what faster towards the close. Then comes David's 
exclamation — his anger flashing out suddenly, rapidly, 
and unrestrained, in a voice louder than that of the 
prophet, in a tone almost of rage, and rising towards the 
climax, when he pronounces the doom of death, with an 
emphasis far beyond any yet employed. Then a long 
pause, while the prophet might be supposed to be 
looking full into the face of the angry king, watching 
the fire of indignation in his eyes, and then, the grand 
catastrophe — slowly, majestically, with a full, not a 
loud, utterance, resting upon the word Thou, concen- 
trate all the force of your expression, leaving the other 
words to drop from your lips without an effort, and 
only slightly increasing the emphasis again with the 
final word. 

I might multiply these examples indefinitely ; but 
space is limited, and I must restrict myself to so 
many as are necessary to exhibit the most marked 
varieties of reading. A lesson in pathos will complete 



140 



THE AET OF READING. 



the series of illustrations of tone, emphasis and pause. 
I take the description of the death of little Paul Dombey 
from Dickens. 

Read it slowly, in low soft tones, throwing into them 
that indescribable expression to which has been given 
the name of pathetic. But to express those tones you 
must feel those emotions ; then they will speak in their 
own natural language, and kindle sympathetic feelings 
in every listener. 

Observe, also, that it must be read easily, quietly, 
without an effort, with no seeking after an effect ; but 
precisely as you would have told such a story. If at 
times the voice should quiver, and the eye swell with a 
tear, so much the better. It will be the more truth- 
ful. 

Paul closed his eyes with those words and fell asleep — — 

Then he awoke — the sun was high and the broad day was 

clear and warm He lay a little — looking at the windows — 

which were open — and the curtains rustling in the air and waving 

to and fro Then he said " Floy — is it to-morrow ? — is 

she come ? " 

Some one seemed to go in quest of her The next thing 

that happened was a noise of footsteps on the stairs and then 

— Paul woke— woke mind and body and sat upright in his 

bed He saw them now about him There was no grey 

mist before them -as there had been sometimes in the night 

-He knew them everyone and called them by their names 

- — — — " And who is this? — Is this my old nurse? " — asked the 

child regarding with a radiant smile a figure coming in 

Yes — Yes No other stranger would have shed those tears at 

sight of him called him her dear boy — her pretty boy her 

own — poor — blighted child No other woman would have stooped 

down by his bed and taken up his wasted hand — and put it to 

her lips and breast as one who had some right to fondle it 

No other woman would have so forgotten everybody there — but 
him and Floy — and been so full of tenderness and pity. 



XXI. ILLUSTRATIONS CONTINUED. 



141 



" Floy ! this is a kind — good face 1 am glad to see it again 

Don't go away — old nurse Stay here — Good-bye ! " 

" Good-bye — my child" — cried Mrs. Pipchin — hurrying to the 
bed's head " Not good-bye ! " 

" Ah, yes good bye ! Where's papa ? " 

He felt his father s breath upon his cheek before the words had 

parted from his lips The feeble hand waved — in the air 

as if it cried — " good-bye " — again. 

" Now lay me down and — Floy — — come close to me 

and let me — see you ! " 

Sister and Brother wound their arms around each other 

and the golden light came streaming in and fell upon 

them locked together. 

" How fast the river runs — between its green banks and the 

rushes — Floy! But it's very near the sea 1 hear the 

waves ! They always said so ! " 

Presently he told her that the motion of the boat upon the 

stream was lulling him to rest How green the banks were 

now how bright the flowers growing on them how tall 

the rushes I Now the boat was out at sea but gliding 

smoothly on And now there was a shore before him 

who stood on the bank ? 

He put his hands together as he had been used to do, at 

his prayers He did not remove his arms to do it but 

they saw him fold them so behind his sister's neck. 

" Mama is like you Floy 1 know her by the face 

But — tell them that the picture — on the stairs — at school ■ 

is not Divine enough The light about the head is shining 

on me as I go ! " 

Here a long pause with hushed breath. Then in 
a deeper and more solemn tone, and very slowly. 

The golden ripple on the wall came back again and nothing 

else stirred in the room The old — OLD fashion 

the fashion that came in with our first garments and will 

last unchanged until our race has run its course and the wide 

firmament is rolled up like a scroll The old — OLD — fashion 

DEATH ! 

Then change the tone and expression to those of 



142 



THE ART OF READING. 



glowing exultation, raising tha voice and swelling the 
chest, and closing with the imploring accents of prayer. 

Oh ! thank GOD all who see it — — for that older fashion 

yet of IMMORTALITY And look upon us Angels 

of young children with regards not quite estranged when 

the swift river bears us to the Ocean ! 

Bemark that the words spoken by little Dombey are 
to be uttered in a low voice, scarcely rising above a 
whisper, and in broken tones, with frequent pauses — for 
he is dying. 

I next proceed to give some suggestions for the 
reading of certain classes of composition — as poetry — 
dialogue — oratory, &c. 



Letter XXIT. 



HOW TO READ POETRY. 

Some murder poetry by singing it, and some by setting 
aside the rhythm, the metre, and the rhyme, and reading 
it as they would read an advertisement in a newspaper. 
Of these two besetting faults, I prefer the former, how- 
ever nasal the twang. There is at least the conscious- 
ness of the presence of poetry — evidence of an ear, if 
not of a taste, for it. But the prosaic reader revolts 
you by the unequivocal proof he gives, with every word 
he utters, that he has neither taste nor ear, and that 
poetry to him is nothing more than dislocated prose. 

The singing of poetry is the reader's most frequent 
fault. Usually it is a habit acquired in very early 
childhood, the consequence of bad training by the first 
teacher of the nursery rhymes that usually constitute a 
child's first exercise of the memory, and afterwards 
cultivated by the successive tutors who undertake the 
task of teaching to read. Metre and rhyme are sore 
temptations to an uncultivated voice. Probably the 
natural impulse is to convert them into music. And it 
must be admitted that music and poetry are very nearly 



144 



THE ART OF READING. 



allied. Poetry (I am speaking now of the mechanical 
part of it) is modified music — perhaps it might be 
termed imperfect music. Analyse them. Music is an 
array of inarticulate lengthened sounds, divided into 
even periods of time. Poetry is an array of articulate 
sounds or words, divided into even accentuations instead 
of even periods of time. These characteristics of song 
and music run so nearly together, that there is in most 
of us a decided tendency to pass from one to the other, 
or to substitute the one for the other, and thus accentu- 
ations come to be exchanged for time, and the articulate 
word lapses into the musical note. This explains the 
process by which the reading of poetry is so often con- 
verted into the singing of it ; and indeed it can be 
prevented only by the exercise of most vigilant care by 
the first instructors of childhood. The lisping boy 
chants the nursery rhyme without correction, and thus 
lays the foundation of a habit which subsequent teachers 
will but too probably strengthen, and which it will be 
the arduous work of his maturity to wnlearn. 

Therefore, before you begin to learn to read poetry, 
ascertain if you are infected by the evil habit of singing 
it, for until that is entirely subdued, progress is hopeless. 
Your own ear will not help you in this investigation. 
It has been perverted also, and has ceased to inform the 
mind of the fact. You cannot so hear yourself as to sit 
in judgment on yourself — 1 at least until another has 
listened and pointed out your defects to you, and you 
learn from his instructions where you err. Call in, 
then, the aid of a judicious friend ; ask him to listen 
while you read a few short passages from poetry in 
various metres, and instruct him that, with most reso- 
lute disregard to wounding your self-love, he shall stop 



XXII. HOW TO READ POETRY. 



145 



you in the way, and tell you of every lapse into song, 
sing-song, or chant. He must be inflexible in bis criti- 
cism, or you will not mend. Score with a pencil in the 
book the words of which he complains. If he is apt at 
imitation, ask him to show you by his voice the manner 
of your reading. Afterwards, when alone, read the 
same passages again from the scored page, carefully 
avoiding the faults he had told you of as attaching to 
the words marked by the pencil, and repeat them several 
times. A few lessons, thus learned, submitting the 
same passages to the judgment of your listener, will 
enable you to avoid the most offensive features of the 
evil habit. But be not impatient. As the mischief 
was early implanted, has been long cherished and grown 
with your growth, it will not be cured without much 
care and perseverance ; and, however tedious the delay, 
do not abandon the task until it is thoroughly achieved. 
It will not be time lost altogether. Having once un- 
learned, the task of learning will be comparatively easy. 

Having thus learned how poetry ought not to be read, 
you will now proceed to learn how it ought to be read. 
You must not sing it ; you must not chant it ; you 
must not drawl it ; you must not ignore the metre and 
the rhyme ; you must not make prose of it. What then 
are you to do with it ? 

Eead it so that metre, rhythm and rhyme may be 
made sensible to the listener's ear, but without giving 
prominence to either. The difference between the read- 
ing of poetry and prose lies in this, that you mark 
by your voice the peculiar characteristics of poetry. 
You must observe the metre, not altogether by intoning 
it, but by the very gentlest inflexion of the voice ; you 
must indicate the rhythm by a more melodious utter- 

H 



146 



THE ART OF READING. 



ance, and the rhyme by a slight — very slight — emphasis 
placed upon it. The rule is plain enough : the difficulty 
lies in preserving the right degree of expression. I can- 
not convey this to you by words ; it can be taught only 
by examples. Your ear should guide you, and would 
do so, if it were not perverted by bad habits. But, as 
those habits are probably formed, I can but advise you 
to do for this as for so many other ingredients of 
the art, — if you have not a judicious friend, who will 
hear patiently and tell you of your faults frankly, apply 
to a professional teacher. 

But there are some frequent errors, of which I may 
usefully warn you. 

Avoid set pauses. Some readers, otherwise skilful, 
will make a pause at precisely the same point in the 
metre of each line, whether the sense does or does not 
require it. This is not merely monotonous — it is wrong. 
In reading poetry, as in prose, the sound must be sub- 
ordinate to the sense. Although there is a measuring 
of words in poetry, there is no measure for the pauses : 
you must pause wheresoever the sense demands a pause, 
without regard to the apparent exigencies of metre or 
rhyme. If that pause so falls that it disturbs the 
melody of the verse or the harmony of the rhyme, you 
should preserve them by so managing your voice that, 
after the pause, it shall resume in the selfsame tone with 
which it rested, just reminding the hearer of the music 
of the verse, as an added charm to the beauty of the 
thought. Then, again, shun carefully the still more 
frequent practice of pausing at the end of each line, 
regardless of the requirement of the thought. It is not 
merely a school-boy's jest that ridicules this sort of 
reading by the excellent illustration of 



XXII. HOW TO BEAD POETKY. 



147 



My name is Norval on the Grampian Hills 

My father kept his flock a frugal swain 

Whose constant care was to increase his store ■ 

And keep his only son myself at home 

For I had heard of battles and I longed 

To follow to the field some warlike lord 

And Heaven soon granted what my sire denied. 

Not a few who think they read well, and who do read 
prose well, completely fail when they attempt to read 
poetry, because of this propensity to measure every line. 
And there is another fault frequently associated with it. 
which has the same origin, and is equally difficult to 
conquer — that is, reading in a "wavy" manner. I 
can find no better phrase for it. I mean that regular 
swell and fall of the voice in accordance with the metre, 
into which the unpractised appear to lapse unconsciously. 
Until you have succeeded in banishing this dreary fault, 
you will not read pleasantly, and the probable effect of 
your measured tones will be to set your audience to 
sleep. But on this also take warning that it is very 
difficult of cure. The best course of treatment, in addi- 
tion to that already recommended, is to fill your mind 
with the meaning of the poet, and to resolve to give full 
expression to that meaning, forgetting, as far as you 
can, the metrical arrangement of the words in which 
those thoughts are conveyed, If your mind dwells too 
much upon the words, you will sing them ; if upon the 
ideas, you will read them. 

There is one rule worth noting. The danger is of 
monotony in the reading of poetry. You must strive 
by all means to avoid this, and resort to every aid to 
give spirit and variety to your voice. Change its tone 
with every change in the thought to be expressed. 
Throw gaiety into it when the theme is cheerful, and 
h 2 



148 



THE ART OF BEADING. 



pathos when it is sad. Abandon yourself to the spirit 
of the poet, and let your utterance be the faithful echo 
of his. even when he rises to rapture. Do not fear to 
overact ; there is no fear of this fault in the reading of 
poetry. Mould your style to his. This you cannot do, 
of course, without thoroughly understanding him, and 
for that purpose it will not suffice to trust to the appre- 
hension of the moment, or even to a hasty previous 
reading ; you must study him, line by line and word by 
word, until you have mastered his full meaning, and 
then you will be able to give effect to it when you 
convey it to an audience. 

Observe, too, that as a rule you should raise your 
voice at a pause, instead of dropping it, as is the frequent 
habit, and especially if that pause falls at the end of 
a line. I have already remarked upon the importance 
of this practice, as giving life and spirit to reading of all 
kinds ; but it is particularly requisite with poetry, 
because of the natural tendency of metre to monotony. 

In rmlearning your probable bad habits in the reading 
of poetry, as in learning how to read it rightly, you 
should adopt a scheme of lessons, so as to accustom 
yourself to the change by steps. Begin with poetry 
which has no rhyme, and in which the metre is not 
very decidedly marked. "Paradise Lost " will be an 
excellent lesson to start with. I do not mean that you 
should read the whole, but select portions of it. On 
careful reading you will observe that the pauses are not 
measured ; they do not fall at the end of the Hnes, but 
are scattered all over them ; and if you strictly keep to 
these, you must avoid both sing-song and chant. For 
instance, take the "Invocation to Light," noted as 



before described. 




XXII. HOW TO BEAD POETRY. 



149 



Hail, — lioly Light ! offspring of lieav'n first born — 

Or of th' Eternal^ co-eternal beam 

May I express tb.ee unblam'd- since GOD is light — 

And never but in unapproached light 

Dwelt from eternity dwelt then in thee 

Bright effluence of bright essence increate ! 

Or hear'st thou rather pure — ethereal stream 

"Whose fountain who shall tell Before the sun — 

Before the heavens thou wert and at the voice 

Of GOD as with a mantle didst invest 

The rising world of waters — dark and deep — 

Won from the void and formless infinite 

Thee I revisit now with bolder wing 

Escaped the Stygian pool — though long detained 

In that obscure sojourn while in my flight 

Through utter and through middle darkness borne 

With other notes than to the Orphean lyre 

I sung of Chaos and eternal night 

Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down 

The dark descent and up to. reascend 

Though hard and rare Thee I revisit safe 

And feel thy sovereign — vital — lamp but thou 

Revisit'st not these eyes that roll in vain 

To find thy piercing ray and find no dawn 

So thick a drop serene hath quench'd their orbs 

Or dim suffusion veiled Yet not the more 

Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt 

Clear spring or shady grove- or sunny hill 

Smit with the love of sacred song but chief 

Thee Sion and the flowing brooks beneath 

That wash thy hallo w'd feet and warbling flow 

Nightly I visit nor sometimes forget 

Those other two equall'd with me in fate 

So were / equall'd with them in renown 

Blind Thamyris and blind Maeonides 

And Tiresias and Phineus prophets old 

Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move 

Harmonious numbers as the wakeful bird 

Sings darkling and in shadiest covert hid 
Tunes her nocturnal throat. 



150 



THE AET OF READING. 



Here, you will observe, the pauses fall at every part 
of the verse. This practice will make the first breach 
in your bad habit of measuring every line. Then betake 
yourself to some poetry having rhymes, but irregular 
verse ; then to such whose metres are still more unusual, 
until, at length, you may venture upon the metres that 
most tempt to sing-song, such as that of " The Exile of 
Erin." And I would especially commend to you, as one 
of the best exercises for the purpose of ^learning sing- 
song, the frequent rendering of "Julia's Letter" in 
Byron's "Don Juan." Whenever you feel yourself 
relapsing into the old habit, read this passage half- 
a-dozen times, with careful observance of the singularly 
varied pauses, and it will revive your lessons in the art. 

I append it. Observe, that it is made up of a series 
of short sentences, and must be so read. With great 
delicacy in the management of your voice, you may 
contrive to strike the very slightest chord of the rhyme 
upon the listener's ear ; but you must be careful, in 
attempting this, not to destroy the fine effect of the 
severed sentences — which may be described as sobs of 
words — and should be almost uttered as such. 

They tell me 'tis decided you depart 

'Tis wise 'tis well but not the less a pain 

/ have no further claim on your young heart 

Mine is the victim and would be again 

To love too much has been the only art 

I used 1 write in haste and if a stain 

Be on this sheet 'tis not what it appeal's 

My eyeballs burn —and throb but have no tears 

I loved 1 love you for this love have lost 

State station heaven mankind's my own 

esteem 

And yet cannot regret what it hath cost 

So dear is still the memory of that dream 



XXII. HOW TO EEAD POETRY. 



Yet if I name my guilt 'tis not to boast 

None can deem harsher of me than / deem 

I trace this scrawl— — because 1 cannot rest 

I've nothing to reproach or to request 

Man's love is of man's life a thing apart — 

'Tis woman's whole existence Man may range 

The court camp church the vessel and the mart 

Sword gown gain — —glory offer in excha? 

Pride fame ambition to fill up his heart 

And few there are whom these cannot estrange 

Men have all these resources we but one 

To love again and be again — undone. 

You will proceed in pleasure and in pride 

Beloved and \o\ingjnany all is o'er 

For me — on earth except some years to hide 

My shame and sorrow deep in my heart's core 

These I could bear but cannot cast aside 

The p>assion which still rages as before 

And so farewell forgive me — love me — no — 

That word is idle now but let it go. 

My breast has been all weakness is so — yet — 

But still — I think I can collect my mind 

My blood still rushes where my spirit's set — 

As roll the waves before the settled wind. 

My heart is feminine nor can forget 

To all — except one image — madly blind 

So shakes the needle and so stands the pole — 

As vibrates my fond heart to my fixed soul. 

I have no more to say but linger still 

And dare not set my seal upon this sheet 

And yet — I may as well the task fulfil 

My misery can scarce be more complete 

I had not lived till now could sorrow kill 

Death siicns the wretch who fain the blow would meet — 

And I must e'en survive this last adieu 

And bear with life to love and pray for you. 



152 



Letter XXIII. 

READING OF NARRATIVE, ARGUMENT AND 
SENTIMENT. 

Few special instructions are needed for the reading of 
narrative. Your chief est care will be to avoid monotony. 
For the most part, there is an even flow of ideas, and a 
smooth stream of words, tending unconsciously to pro- 
duce in you an uniformity of expression and tone that 
is apt to lull the listener to sleep. A continual effort 
will consequently be required on your part to counteract 
that tendency, by throwing into your reading as much 
liveliness of manner and variety of expression as the 
matter will permit ; and it is better to hazard the charge 
of over-acting, than to find your hearers nodding, 
starting, and staring, with that extravagant endeavour 
not to look sleepy by which drowsiness always betrays 
itself. 

First, think what a narrative is. You are telling a 
story from a book instead of from memory — that is all. 
But when you tell a story, you do not drawl it, or gabble 
it, or sing it, or run right through it without a pause, 
or in the same tone, or without a change of expression. 
On the contrary, you vary your voice with every varia- 



XXIII. READING OF NABRATTVE, ETC, 



153 



tion in the theme : sometimes yon speak quickly, 
sometimes slowly ; yonr voice is now loud, now soft ; 
yon express cheerfnlness at some parts, and serionsness 
or sadness at others ; sometimes yonr voice swells with 
the rising inflection, sometimes it sinks with the falling 
one ; and thus, prompted by nature alone, without 
teaching, and instinctively, you not only rightly embody 
the ideas in your mind, but you give to them the right 
expression, and so excite the minds of your audience 
to attention, and write upon them that which it was 
your desire to convey. 

But when you take a book and read the same narra- 
tive, you will probably assume an artificial voice, tone, 
and manner — tedious, monotonous and sleep-provoking — ■ 
and fail to keep attention awake for ten minutes. 

How may you avoid this ? By going back to 
nature. Think how you would tell it all out of book, 
and try so to read it from the book. Let it be ever 
present to your thoughts, when reading narrative, that 
you are but telling a story in choicer language, and 
utter it accordingly. I do not mean by this, that all 
narratives should be read in the same manner, for each 
must be expressed according to its special character : a 
tone of gaiety should be infused into a light and lively 
story ; a tone of gravity or of sadness into a grave or 
pathetic tale. But this applies only to the general 
characteristics of your manner of reading. If any grave 
passages occur in the lively narrative, or any lively 
passages in the grave narrative, they must be rendered 
according to their own characteristics, not following the 
general strain of the composition, which they are 
designed to relieve by variety. So, when dialogue is 
introduced, do not fail to seize the opportunity for entire 
h 3 



154 



THE ART OF READING. 



change and relief by giving to it that full dramatic 
expression which will be described in a subsequent 
chapter. Another means for breaking the monotony of 
narrative is to raise your voice slightly at the end of 
each sentence, instead of dropping it, as is the too 
frequent habit of English speakers and readers. 

You will find great differences in prose narratives 
as respects facility for reading. The composition of 
some authors is so musical — their language has so much 
rhythm in it — that it is extremely difficult to avoid the 
lapse into monotony ; these are very pleasant to the 
tongue of the reader, and, at first, very agreeable to the 
audience ; but they soon weary those who have nothing 
to do but to open their ears. It is necessary that you 
should conquer this difficulty in the reading of such 
writers, and therefore you must practise yourself with 
them assiduously — but not at the beginning of your 
lessons. Commence with the most abrupt and rugged 
of prose writers, whose aim is power rather than sweet- 
ness, and who will not permit you to be monotonous. 
Advance from these to the writers whose periods are 
rounded and words musically arranged. Portions of 
"Tristram Shandy" and " Carlyle's History of the 
French Ee volution" afford good practice for a beginning, 
if you carefully observe all the eccentricities of the 
composition. Macaulay's short sentences will assist 
your next step ; De Foe, and Dryden, and Swift will serve 
for further progress ; while the rounded periods, allitera- 
tions, and artfully balanced words of such writers as 
Gibbon and Johnson should be reserved for your latest 
efforts, when you have altogether, or almost, subdued 
your impulses to metre and monotony. 

But if the reading of narrative is difficult, that of 



XXIII. READING OF NARRATIVE, ETC. 155 

didactic writing is still more difficult. The liveliest 
reading of this class of composition is laborious for the 
listener to follow, for an argument is not so rapidly- 
received by the mind as a picture. Mark the difference. 
When you narrate a story, by your words you simply 
suggest & picture to the minds of your audience. They 
are not required to think about it, or to employ any 
other faculties than merely to give their attention. 
Your words, by association, instantly, without an effort 
on their parts, call up in their minds the images of the 
things which those words signify. The process is wholly 
without labour, and the product pleasant. So it is with 
sentimental writing. The minds of the audience are 
moved by sympathy, without any exertion of thought. 
The suggestive words fall on the ear and the emotion 
follows. But otherwise it is with whatever is in the 
nature of argument. The mind of the listener is not a 
mere recipient ; it must not only perceive the ideas 
conveyed, but exercise itself in comparing them, and 
pass through the whole process of reasoning by which 
the conclusion is attained. It is necessary to remember 
this in the reading of didactic writing, so that you may 
adapt your manner to the requirement of your audience. 
You must read very much more slowly than is requisite 
for narrative, because the listener's mind has to pass 
through a process of work before he can fully receive 
what you design to convey, and if you read fast he 
cannot keep pace with you. Therefore, too, you should 
make long pauses, especially at the close of each propo- 
sition or step in the argument ; you should emphasise 
the commencement of each proposition, in order to 
direct attention to it, and the conclusion should be read 
with still greater emphasis, and still more slowly, that 



THE ART OF READING. 



it may be more firmly impressed upon trie listener's 
mind and memory — that being the end and object of 
the previous argument. If its importance be great* it 
is desirable sometimes to repeat it — a device that seldom 
fails of its effect, and which is not so often practised by 
readers, preachers and speakers, as it might be. 

The foremost difficulty in the reading of all compo- 
sitions of this class is to keep the attention of your 
audience, especially if the subject is more instructive 
than interesting. You must rely much upon yourself 
for this effect. The temptation is sorely upon you to 
be cold and dull. This is the fault against which you 
will have to guard, and every device must be employed 
to counteract the tendency. Try to be cheerful, even 
lively. Seize every opportunity afforded by the text to 
vary the strain, to change your tone, to alter your 
expression. The argument must be dry indeed — too 
dry for any place but the study — that is not varied by 
illustrations, or relieved by narrative, or sentiment, or a 
flash or two of wit or humour. Avail yourself of all 
such helps to keep your audience awake, and you may 
even venture to make them more emphatic than would 
be altogether permissible elsewhere, for the purpose of 
stimulating attention. Try to render them in the most 
amusing manner you can assume ; discard the didactic 
tones altogether while these episodes are on your lips, 
and when in due course you resume the argument, the 
effect will be the more impressive — it will be in itself 
an attractive change, and help you through another 
strain of laborious reasoning. Even the argument itself 
is capable of being much enlivened or dulled by your 
manner of rendering it. Avoid alike the dreary and 
the dogmatic tone, put it in the lightest and liveliest 



XXIII. EExVDING OF NARRATIVE, ETC. 



157 



tone you can assume, but yet with, that earnestness which 
gives so much weight to conviction. 

Sentimental compositions require the observance of 
one grand rule- — you must feel what you read ; if you 
do not, it will fail of its effect. Sentiment sways by 
sympathy, and tones are even more sympathetic than 
words. A sentence that conveys the idea of grief will 
not touch the heart so speedily or so surely as a sor- 
rowful sound of the voice. Therefore, in reading 
sentiment, give to it the right expression, and vary your 
expression with every change in the sentiment, and your 
tone with every degree of emotion. This may be acted 
if you are a consummate actor, and the voice may 
assume the fit expression for the words, without even 
the shadow of an emotion passing over your own mind ; 
but such, art is so rare that you are not likely to have 
learned it. Short of the highest skill, it will certainly 
betray itself ; the listener will discover the absence of 
the true ring ; the sound will have a hollowness in it 
sensible to the practised ear, and which the unpractised 
will find in its failing to move them. But feel what you 
read, and your hearers will feel too ; and their feeling 
will react on you, and excite you yet more deeply, and 
make your reading still more effective. 

But emotion will not bear too long a strain, and you 
should seize every opportunity for its relaxation. The 
effect is vastly enhanced by variety, and if the com- 
position is by a skilful writer, that necessary variety 
will have been introduced. Make the best of it ; mark 
the variety by your manner. Leap from grave to gay, 
from the joyous to the sad, giving the full effect to each 
in its turn, that the effect of the other may be heightened 
by the contrast. 



158 



THE ART OF READING. 



Sentiment is more frequently found mingled with 
narrative than occupying an entire composition. In 
such case it is the more easy, for the story has already 
prepared the way for the ready rise of the emotion in 
your own mind, and the more perfect sympathy with it 
in the minds of your audience. But be more than ever 
careful in such case to mark by your manner the 
boundary between the narrative and the sentiment. 
Eead each, according to its own requirement, in the 
fashion that has been suggested. 

Declamation is properly a part of oratory, and will 
come to be fully treated of in the remarks on the art of 
speaking ; but, as it is sometimes found in books and 
often in newspapers, I should not complete a commentary 
on the art of reading without some notice of it. I use 
it here as a general term, to include all the class of 
compositions that are of the nature of oratory, whether 
delivered in the senate, at the bar, from the pulpit, or 
on the platform. I cannot give you many definite rules 
for the reading of speeches, and it is extremely difficult 
to describe by words how they should be read. A 
judicious teacher would show you in a few minutes, 
and I can assist you only by negatives. You must 
not read a speech as it was, or ought to have 
been, spoken, for that would not be reading, but 
spouting. Neither, on the other hand, must you read 
it as you would read a narrative. You must assume 
something of the oratorical manner and tone, and 
a great deal of the expression which a good speaker 
would give to the discourse — the same pauses 
should be observed, and almost the same emphasis 
— the " points " as they are called, of the speech 
should be well brought out. A little excess of this 



XXIII. READING OF NARRATIVE. ETC. 



159 



is preferable to too much taineness, and the lesser 
error here is over-acting. 

The reading aloud of this class of compositions will 
be found of great utility in educating yourself in the 
art of speaking, and therefore you should lose no oppor- 
tunity for practising it. 



160 



Letter XXIV. 

SPECIAL READINGS— THE BIBLE. 

In or out of the pulpit, good reading of the Bible is 
very rarely heard. Even persons who read well any 
other book, often read this greatest of all books most 
vilely. Not one clergyman in a hundred can read a 
chapter correctly — meaning by that term, the right ex- 
pression of the sense, as distinguished from the graces of 
expression. Not one in a thousand can read a chapter 
effectively as well as correctly. It is worse with the 
laity. So with the Prayer-book. How seldom are the 
services delivered as they should be ; how few can give 
to family prayer its proper reading ! There must be 
some cause, widely and powerfully operating, to produce 
so universal an effect, and that cause nmst be understood 
before a cure can be recommended. Let us seek for it. 

It is the business of the clergy to read, and they have 
not learned their business if they have not studied the 
art of reading. It may be presumed that most of them 
do this more or less ; yet such is the difficulty, either of 
conquering bad habits already acquired, or avoiding a 
lapse into mannerism where the same thing is often re- 



XXIV. SPECIAL READINGS— THE BIBLE. 1 61 

peated, that we find clergymen remaining or becoming 
bad readers, in spite of study of the art of reading. 
Even if they learn to read other things well, they fail 
for the most part to read rightly that which it is their 
daily duty to read. Why is this ? 

I believe the foundation of the fault to be a very pre- 
valent, but a very mistaken, notion that the Bible re« 
quires to be read in a different manner from other books, 
and this independently of and in addition to the expres- 
sion proper to the subject treated of. A tone is assumed 
that was originally designed to be reverential, as if the 
reader supposed that there was something holy in the 
words themselves, apart from the ideas they express. 
This tone, consciously employed at first, and then kept 
somewhat under control, soon comes to be used uncon- 
sciously and habitually, and rapidly usurps the place of 
expression, showing itself in many varieties of sound, 
from drawl and sing-song to the nasal twang which for- 
merly distinguished the conventicle. Few readers escape 
the infection, or shake off the habit when once it is 
acquired, because it ceases to be audible to themselves. 
The voice will swell and fall at regular intervals, the 
reader all the while supposing that he is speaking quite 
naturally, while he is really on the verge of a chant ; 
yet if, immediately afterwards, he were asked to read 
a narrative in a newspaper, he would do so in his own 
proper voice and every-day manner. 

This evil habit, so powerful because so imperceptible 
to the victim of it, is the mischief mainly to be grap- 
pled with, for it is the foundation of that bad reading 
of the Bible which prevails as much in the pulpit as out 
of it. The first step to conquest is to know the fault 
and its origin. The supposed religious tone must be 



162 



THE ART OF READING. 



banished, so far as it is applied to the book itself, or to 
the words printed in it ; but there is a reverential tone, 
properly applicable to the meaning conveyed by the 
words, which should be cultivated. A mere narrative 
in the Bible demands no utterance differing from a nar- 
rative in a newspaper, unless the subject of it be 
solemn ; but pious exhortations and religious sentiments 
have a manner of expression properly belonging to them, 
but very different indeed from the nasal twang and 
the intoned groans that are so much in vogue. Cast off 
every relic of these, and then, having first patiently 
learned how not to read the Bible and Prayer-book, study 
zealously how to read them. 

The drawl, the drone, the whine, the chant, the groan 
— these are the besetting sins to be sedulously shunned. 
Frequent repetition of the selfsame passages is apt to 
generate some of them. The services, recited so often, 
come so readily to the lips of the clergyman who reads 
them three or four times a- week, that there is a natural 
tendency to utterance of them mechanically, without 
their having first passed through the mind, and hence 
mannerisms of which he is unconscious. As once read, 
so are they always ; and if the habit be not early 
wrestled with, it becomes incurable. The only remedy 
is the presence of an inexorable critic, who will stop you 
when you are faulty, and make you repeat the sentence 
until you read it rightly ; or a professional teacher, who 
will not merely detect your errors, but show you how 
you ought to read, and thus substitute his style for 
yours. 

A special difficulty in the reading of the Bible arises 
from its division into verses, and its very incorrect and 
imperfect punctuation. Indeed, you will find it neces- 



XXIV. SPECIAL READINGS THE BIBLE. 163 

sary to overlook the printed signs, and introduce your 
own pauses according to the requirements of the com- 
position. But they do very much trouble the eye, how- 
ever resolved you may be not to heed them ; and they 
certainly offer a serious impediment to good Bible 
reading, 

A still more difficult task is to pay no heed to the 
verses. You should so read that the listener may be 
unable to discover from your voice where a verse begins 
or ends. Often it is the correct measure of a sentence 
or a paragraph, and then the voice and the verse will 
run together, but only marked as if it were a sentence 
occurring in an undivided page, and with no indication 
of any artificial arrangement. The sense does not re- 
quire this breaking up into verses : it is purely arbitrary. 
It does not exist in the original ; it was adopted in the 
translation for the convenience of reference, and for 
chanting ; and there is no more call for heed to be given 
to it in reading than if it were the History of England. 
Try to forget it ; you will find the task extremely diffi- 
cult, but until you have learned to do so, you cannot 
read well. 

Then apply to it all the rules that have been sug- 
gested in these letters for reading other compositions. 
The Bible embodies all of them — narrative, dialogue, 
poetry, declamation, argument. It is a magnificent study 
for the reader, and an admirable exercise, if only he 
can first banish the bad habits he is almost certain to 
have acquired from early training and evil example 
everywhere At the beginning, rather incline to the 
opposite fault, and even gabble it, as the best means 
of throwing off the groan or the chant. Bead a 
chapter as glibly, lightly, and rapidly as if it were 



164 



THE ART OF READING. 



a novel. Eead it again more slowly ; then again 
more seriously ; then with its proper tone and emphasis, 
only taking care, if you find any of the faults reviving, 
to banish them by again returning to the opposite 
manner* 

Select for your exercises chapters or passages that 
contain examples of the several kinds of composition, 
and confine your attention to each one singly until you 
have mastered it. Suppose you begin with a narrative, 
read it as a narrative, with the same ease, and fluency, 
and variety of expression, as are recommended in the 
previous instructions for reading compositions of that 
class. So with dialogue, or declamation, or argument. 
Do not assume a different manner or tone from that 
which you would adopt if you were reading the self- 
same sentences in some other book. Give to them pre- 
cisely the tone, and style, and expression, that you would 
give to the ideas conveyed by the same words when- 
soever or wheresoever you were required to utter them. 
And give the full expression, and nothing but the ex- 
pression, that belongs to them. Persons accustomed to 
the drone, which they imagine to be reverential, will at 
first complain that you read the Bible like another book • 
but they will soon get over this, when they find how 
much more effectively it is heard and remembered. 
Another set of hearers, who eschew the beautiful and 
the pleasing until they banish with them the good and 
the true, will raise a louder outcry against the right 
reading of the narrative and the dialogue — that it is 
theatrical; a vague term of reproach, formerly more 
formidable than it now is, and which you must learn to 
despise if you aspire to be a good reader ; because a 
good actor being a good reader, and something more, 



XXIV. SPECIAL READINGS THE BIBLE. 



165 



you cannot read well until you read as correctly as the 
good actor reads. You cannot hope to conciliate this 
class of critics, for they will be satisfied with nothing 
but a monotonous drawl, and will give the sneering 
epithet to anything that escapes from their bathos ; so 
you may as well set them at defiance from the begin- 
ning, and follow the dictates of your own good taste to 
its utmost limits, regardless of the protests of the taste- 
less. If you would satisfy yourself of the effect of a full 
and proper reading of the Bible, as compared with the 
common-place reading of it, read, first, in the ordinary 
way, and afterwards artistically, the Eaising of Lazarus, 
the Parable of Nathan, the Agony in the Garden, the Cru- 
cifixion, and the exquisite chapter on Charity, and your 
audience, equally with yourself, will acknowledge that 
they had never before rightly comprehended the simple 
grandeur of those passages. 

And so with the reading of prayers. Mannerism is more 
frequent in this than even in the reading of the Bible. 
The groaning style is the favourite one. Why should it 
be deemed necessary to address the Divinity as if you 
had a stomach-ache ? Yet so do ninety-nine out of 
every hundred in the pulpit or in family prayer, There 
is a tone of profound reverence most proper to be as- 
sumed in prayer, and wdiich, indeed, if the prayer be 
felt at the moment of utterance, it is almost impossible 
not to assume : but that is very different indeed from 
the sepulchral and stomachic sounds usually emitted. 
It will be observed, too, that readers usually employ the 
downward inflection of the voice — that is to say, the 
voice descends at the close of the sentence — whereas, in 
prayer, the opposite or upward inflection should be 
employed. The voice should always rise at the end 



166 



THE ART OF READING. 



of a sentence, that being the natural expression of the 
language of a petition or request. Take the familiar 
instance of the Lord's Prayer. How many times have 
you heard it read correctly anywhere or by anybody ? I 
will give it you, as it should be read artistically, accord- 
ing to the rules already suggested. Compare it with 
your own habitual reading. I mark it as before. 

Our FATHER which art in heaven hallow'd be Thy 

name Thy kingdom come Thy will be done on 

earth as it is in heaven Give ns — day by day — our daily 

bread and forgive us our trespasses — as we forgive them 

that trespass against us And lead us not into temptation — 

but deliver us from evil Amen. 

I could say . much about the reading of the services of 
the Church, but the subject does not properly belong to 
these letters, which are addressed to you as a law stu- 
dent, who must be able to write and read well, in order 
to speak well ; and therefore I pause here. 



167 



Letter XXV. 

DRAMATIC READING, 

I have reserved this for the last, because it includes all 
the rest. By the term "Dramatic Beading I do not 
intend merely the reading of drama, but reading dra- 
matically whatever is dramatic, whether it be or be not 
a drama in name or form. There is scarcely any kind 
of composition that does not contain something dramatic, 
for there are few writings so dull as to be unenlivened 
by an anecdote, an episode or apologue, a simile or an 
illustration,, and these are for the most part more or less 
dramatic. Wherever there is dialogue there is drama. 
No matter what the subject of the discourse — whether 
it be grave or gay, or its object be to teach or only to 
amuse, — if it assume to speak through any agency other 
than the writer in his own proper person, there is drama. 
As. in musie, we have heard Mendelssohn's exquisite 
Songs without Words, wherein the airs by their expres- 
siveness suggest the thoughts and feelings a poet would 
have embodied in choicest language and married to such 
music, so there is to be found in literature drama with- 
out the ostensible shape of drama, as in a narrative 



168 



THE ART OF READING. 



whose incidents are so graphically described that we see 
in the mind's eye the actions of all the characters, and 
from those actions learn the words they must have 
spoken when so acting and feeling. 

Moreover, drama belongs exclusively to humanity. It 
attaches to the " quicquid agunt homines." It is diffi- 
cult to conceive, and almost impossible to describe, any 
doings of men that are not dramatic. All the external 
world might be accurately painted in words, without a 
particle of drama, though with plenty of poetry ; but, 
certainly, two human beings cannot be brought into 
communication without a drama being enacted. Their 
intercourse could only be described dramatically, and 
that which is so described requires to be read dramat- 
ically. Of this art, the foundation is an accurate con- 
ception of the various characters, and the perfection of 
the art is to express their characteristics truly, each one 
as the personage in question would have so spoken, had 
he really existed at such a time and in such circum- 
stances. The dramatist and the novelist conceive certain 
ideal personages ; they place them in certain imaginary 
conditions ; then they are enabled, by a mental process 
which is not an act of reasoning but a special faculty, 
to throw their own minds into the state that would be 
the condition of such persons so situated, and forth- 
with there arises within their minds the train of 
feelings and thoughts natural to that situation. It is 
difficult to describe this mental process clearly in un- 
scientific language, but it will be at once admitted that 
something very like it must take place before Genius, 
sitting in a lonely room, could give probable speech and 
emotion to creatures of the imagination. That is the 
dramatic art of the author, and, because it is so difficult 



XXV. DBAMATIC BEADING. 



169 



and rare, it is the most highly esteemed of all the ac- 
complishments of authorship. 

For the right reading of dialogue very nearly the same 
process is required. You must, in the first place, com- 
prehend distinctly the characters supposed to be speaking 
in the drama. You must have in your mind's eye a 
vivid picture of them, as suggested by the author's 
sketch in outline. Next, you must thoroughly under- 
stand the meaning of the words the author has put into 
their mouths, that is to say, what it was those words 
were designed to express. This fancy portrait will 
suggest the manner of speaking ; and then, clearly com- 
prehending the meaning of the words, you will naturally 
utter them with the right tones and emphasis. 

As the great author, having conceived a character and 
invented situations for it, by force of his genius, and 
without an effort of reason, makes him act and talk 
exactly as such a person would have acted and talked in 
real life ; so the great actor, mastering the author's 
design, rightly and clearly comprehending the character 
and learning the words it is supposed to speak, gives 
to them the correct expression, not as the result of 
a process of reasoning, but instinctively, by throwing 
his mind into the position of the character he is per- 
sonating. So does the good reader become for the 
moment the personages of whom he is reading, and 
utters their thoughts as themselves would have uttered 
them. The reader must be the actor without the action. 

Until you have attained to the ready use of this faculty 
of personation, you cannot be a good reader of dialogue ; 
but it is a faculty capable of cultivation, and certain to 
improve by practice. Bashfulness is a very frequent 
cause of failures that are supposed to result from appa- 

I 



170 



THE ART OF READING. 



rent lack of the faculty itself. Almost every reader 
shrinks at first from reading in character. He fears 
failure ; lie wants the courage to break down and try 
again ; he is scared by his own voice, and has no confi- 
dence in his own capacities. 

But I desire to impress upon you that dialogue must 
be read dramatically, or it had better not be read at all ; 
and, that there may be no tendency to read it otherwise, 
make it a rule from the beginning of your practice of 
the art to read dramatically, whatever the book in your 
hand, and in however unsatisfactory a manner you 
may do so at first. Persevere, and you will be able to 
measure your improvement almost from day to day — 
certainly from week to week ; and, as you advance, your 
courage will grow too, and you will not only speedily 
learn how dialogue ought to be read, but you will acquire 
the confidence necessary to read it rightly. 

Dialogue is the very best practice for students of the 
Art of Beading. Nothing so rapidly and effectually 
destroys personal mannerisms. In other readings, it is 
yourself that speaks, and you speak according to your 
habits, which are more likely to be bad than good. But 
in dialogue you speak, not as yourself, but as some other 
person, and often as half-a-dozen different persons, so 
that you are unconsciously stripped of your own man- 
nerisms. You must infuse into your style so much life 
and spirit, you must pass so rapidly from one mode of 
utterance to another, that the most inveterate habits are 
rudely shaken. Dialogue is not only excellent practice 
for } 7 ourself, but, well read, it is the most pleasant 
of all forms of composition to listen to. It never 
wearies the ear by monotony, for the tones of the 
voice change with every sentence ; nor the mind by 



XXV. DRAMATIC READING. 171 

overtaxing thought, for each speaker suggests a new 
train of ideas. 

Being such, how should dialogue be read, and how 
may you best learn to read it ? 

Dialogue must everywhere and at all times be read in 
character. Whenever what you read assumes the form 
of a conversation between two or more persons, all that 
is represented as spoken should be read precisely as such 
descriptions, sentiments, or arguments would have been 
uttered by such persons as the supposed speakers. I 
repeat, that you must read these in character, changing 
the character with each part in the dialogue and pre- 
serving throughout the same manner of reading each of 
the parts, so that it shall not be necessary for you to 
name the speaker, but the audience shall know, from 
your utterance of the first half-dozen words, which of 
the characters is speaking. And the change must be 
instantaneous. There must be no pause to think who 
the next speaker is, and what he is, and how you should 
represent him, or how you have already represented him 
— but you must pass from one to the other without 
hesitation, and apparently without an effort. There is 
no emotion of the mind which you may not thus be 
required to express without any preparation, and the 
changes to opposite emotions are often most abrupt. In 
short, as I have before observed, a good reader will read 
as a good actor speaks, only in more subdued fashion, 
as speech is naturally, when not accompanied by action. 

This is what you have to do ; but how may you acquire 
the art of doing it ? 

Its difficulty cannot be denied. It demands some 
physical qualifications, wanting which, success is impos- 
sible. You must possess a certain degree of flexibility 

i 2 



172 



THE ART OF READING. 



of voice, or you will be unable to modify it for the 
different personages in the dialogue. All who have 
emotions can express them, but something more than 
that is necessary for the reading of dialogue. It would 
not do to express the emotions of a clown in the tones 
of a gentleman, and vice versa, But apart from the true 
expression of the emotion, there is a manner of expres- 
sion that is quite as requisite to be observed. If, for 
instance, you read the trial scene in " Pickwick," the 
speech of Serjeant Buzfuz must not only rightly express 
the ideas put into the advocate's mouth, but also the 
characteristic manner of his utterance of them. So with 
the examination of Sam Weller and the other witnesses. 
Some persons are physically incompetent to do this ; - 
they cannot mould their voices, nor put off their own 
characters, nor assume other characters than their 
own. 

But although there is no hope where the faculty is 
wholly wanting, — if it exists, however feebly, it is capa- 
ble of great improvement ; not without limit, indeed, 
but the terminus cannot be assigned. So, unless you 
are conscious of entire incapacity, address yourself to 
the task hopefully and resolutely, undeterred by failure, 
because through failure you will best learn how to suc- 
ceed. And the first qualification is courage. Be not 
alarmed at the sound of your own voice, nor shrink from 
giving full expression to your conceptions. Eesolved to 
express whatever you may feel, you will begin by reading 
to yourself the dialogue you have selected for your les- 
son. Let it be, for instance, the glorious scene in 
" Ivanhoe " between Eichard and the Clerk of Oopman- 
hurst. Having thus learned the characters of the two 
personages, as designed by the novelist, think how such 



XXV. DEAMATIO READING. 



178 



characters would speak-— by which I mean the manner 
of their speaking, the tones of their voices, the peculiari- 
ties of their utterances, considered apart from the mean- 
ing of their words. Bead one of the sentences in the 
dialogue in the manner you have thus conceived of the 
speaker ; repeat the sentence until you are satisfied with 
your performance of it. Then do the like with the 
other characters, until you have mastered them also. In 
this exercise be careful to study the reading of each 
character separately, and do not attempt a second, until 
you have so perfectly learned the first that you can read 
any sentence set down to him in the dialogue in the 
characteristic manner belonging to him. Do not attempt 
to read the whole as dialogue until you have thus 
mastered all the parts in it, and you will find the labour 
well bestowed, for, this task accomplished, the rest is 
comparatively easy. The next process is to read the 
dialogue silently, slowly, and thoughtfully, for the pur- 
pose of clearly comprehending what it is that the 
author designed the characters to say — that is, the 
meaning of the speakers, as distinguished from their 
manner of speaking ; for unless you rightly understand 
this, it is impossible for you to give correct expression 
to the words. Moreover, this is a fine exercise of the 
intellect, and it is not the least of the many uses of the 
Art of Reading, that it compels you to cultivate the full 
understanding of what you read. Where you have 
doubts as to the meaning, you will often find them solved 
by reading the doubtful passage aloud, and your ear 
following that of the author, you will be conducted to 
the conception of his ideas. 

You will now be prepared to begin the reading of the 
whole dialogue with some success. You have acquired 



THE ART OF READING-. 



the mannerisms of the various speakers ; you have 
mastered the meaning of the words put into their 
mouths ; nothing now remains but the art of instanta- 
neously changing your manner and voice, as you pass 
from speaker to speaker, according to the exigencies of 
the dialogue. This is an accomplishment of undoubted 
difficulty, but it is essential to good reading ; it can be 
acquired by practice alone, and, fortunately, perseverance 
will command success, however impracticable it may 
seem to you at the beginning. 

Thus the art of Dramatic Beading is comprised in 
three distinct requirements : first, representation of the 
manner of the speakers ; secondly, the right expression 
of the thoughts to which they give utterance ; and, 
thirdly, an instant change from one character to another, 
without hesitation or halt for reflection, always so pain- 
ful to listeners. 

And the test of your success in this will be, whether, 
without its being named by you on the change of 
speakers, or indicated otherwise than by the change in 
your manner, your audience may know to whose part in 
the dialogue the sentence you are then reading belongs. 
In printed plays, the name of the character is set at the 
commencement of each part of the dialogue spoken by 
him. On the stage, the eyes inform the audience who 
he is who speaks, however badly he may play the part. 
In listening to reading, no such help comes to the eye 
as from the page or from the stage ; and if the reader 
were to introduce every sentence with the speaker's 
name, it would be most unpleasing. If you read the 
dialogue rightly, the audience will know from your 
manner of reading who is speaking, as certainly as if 
you had prefaced the speech with the speaker's name. 



XXV. DRAMATIC READING. 175 

Until you can do this, you will not have learned 
the art of reading dialogue ; in which, as I asserted at 
the beginning of this letter, is comprised the whole Art 
of Eeading. 



176 



Letter XXVL 

THE USES OF READING. 

At great cost and with much, labour you cultivate the 
art of singing. You employ masters. You practice 
continually. You pride yourself upon the accomplish- 
ment, when it is attained. But, after all, it is merely 
an accomplishment, pleasant to yourself and to others, 
although, if its temptations be weighed against its advan- 
tages, it may be doubtful which would kick the beam. 
But the art of reading is more useful, is equally pleasant, 
and its advantages have no drawback. All that can be 
advanced in favour of learning to sing can be urged in 
favour of learning to read, with the addition of many 
reasons for reading not to be found for singing, and the 
absence of objections that certainly prevail against the 
more popular accomplishment. 

The uses of Reading are manifold. 

You must well understand what you read before you 
can express it rightly. Not only do you thus learn the 
thoughts as well as the words of an author, but, giving 
utterance to them, you assure yourself that it is not 
a mere speaking by rote, that the ideas have entered 



XXVI. THE USES OF BEADING, 



177 



into your mind and become a part of its stores. When 
reading to yourself you are apt to skim the words, with- 
out interpreting them clearly to the mind, and to skip 
passages that may be necessary to a right understanding 
of the theme. Often the eye runs over the type while 
the mind is passive. When you read aloud, even if you 
address only the chairs and tables, you cannot thus im- 
pose upon yourself. The mind must be actively engaged 
in the work ; not only must it apprehend, but it must 
comprehend. Before the words on the printed page can 
come with correct expression out of your lips, they must 
be received into your mind, they must call up there the 
ideas they were designed to convey, or set in motion the 
processes by which the desired conclusion is wrought. 
This compulsion to understand what you read is the first 
and greatest of the uses of the Art of Beading. 

But it is as pleasant to others as profitable to your- 
self. Beading aloud is not as popular as singing only 
because the taste for it has not been cultivated, and this 
lack of cultivation is the result of a lack of good readers, 
or more properly, perhaps, of the prevalence of bad 
reading. Seeing that nineteen persons out of twenty 
read so vilely that it is a positive pain to hear them, it 
is not surprising that the suggestion of listening to a 
reader whose fitness is not guaranteed should be received 
with alarm by those who have never heard good reading. 
But when you have overcome this prejudice by proof of 
the pleasure and profit to be derived from a good book 
well read, you will not want a willing audience. In 
your family circle this art will be a perennial source of 
amusement. A boundless treasury is at your command 
for the enjoyment of your household. Nor is it a sel- 
fish solitary pleasure. The same exertion serves for the 
i 3 



178 



THE ART OF READING. 



enjoyment of as many as can hear your voice, and the 
pleasure is enhanced in each when partaken by many. 
Nor does the practice of this art demand cessation from 
other pursuits. While listening to the wisdom, the wit, 
the poetry, or the emotions, of the greatest and purest 
intellects God has created, the hands may be busily 
employed in useful work ; indeed, most persons never 
listen so attentively as when their fingers are busy. 

But you must not be disappointed if you fail at first 
to win the ears of an audience, accustomed to read 
to themselves, but not practised in listening to 
reading by another. The mental processes are different ; 
they are not acquired in a moment ; they need more or 
less of education. If you have read much to yourself, 
the association of the printed word with the idea it 
represents is so easy and speedy that you are not con- 
scious that it is an operation learned slowly and tedi- 
ously. So it is with the listening to reading. The 
association of the spoken word with the idea it expresses 
is not so rapid and easy as to be unconscious. On the 
contrary, you are aware of a mental effort in the act, and 
you compare the sensible labour of the process of receiv- 
ing through the ear from the lips of a reader with the 
facility of passage to the mind through the eye, and you 
prefer the latter to the former. This, however, is only 
for a short season. Each time you listen to good read- 
ing you will do so with more pleasure, because you will 
understand what is read with less labour, until you will 
come to receive the ideas thus conveyed to you by the 
lip as readily as when carried through the eye ; with the 
added facility of having the true sense of the author pre- 
sented to you by one who has already learned it, without 
the labour of studying and searching it out for yourself. 



XXVI. THE USES OF EEADINO. 



179 



As the object of the Art of Beading is to be understood, 
and as to be understood you must understand, if it had 
no other use, it would be an accomplishment of incalcul- 
able value. But there are other advantages, personal 
and professional. The practice of reading aloud trains 
you to the habit of hearing your own voice without 
alarm. You cease to start " at the sound yourself had 
made." It gives flexibility to your voice, tenderness to 
your tones, expression to your tongue. Your conversa- 
tion will be vastly more agreeable when you talk in a 
strain where the sound echoes the sense, instead of a 
monotonous muttering, where half the sense is lost for 
lack of the right expression of it. 

And if you are willing to take part in the great work 
of education, you may render most effective aid by read- 
ing to those who cannot read, or who read so imperfectly 
that reading is a laborious task. Custom has made the 
process of associating the printed and the spoken word 
so easy to you, that you can scarcely understand how 
difficult it is to those who have had only a little prac- 
tice. For the assistance of these, and for the instruc- 
tion of others who, though they can read readily, prefer 
the exercise of the ear to that of the eye, especially 
when the contents of a book are thus conveyed to them 
by an intelligent reader, a society formed under the 
auspices of Lord Brougham has undertaken the establish- 
ment of public readings, open at the smallest charge, at 
which the office of reader is gratuitously performed. It' 
such a society does not exist in your neighbourhood, you 
can easily establish one, at the same time doing an 
act of kindness to others, and perfecting yourself in the 
art by practising there the precepts you have learned 
elsewhere. 



180 



THE ART OF READING. 



The professional advantages of the Art of Beading are 
greater even than are the personal benefits. A Lawyer 
is usually the spokesman at public meetings, because it 
is his business to talk. Often he is required to read 
reports and other documents. His fame is won or lost 
by the manner of his reading. When undertaking a 
cause in any court, the right or wrong reading of some 
written evidence may affect the verdict. An emphasis 
on the wrong word, or a pause in the wrong place, may 
change the meaning of a whole sentence ; witness the 
well-known passage, "And Balaam said, 'saddle me — 
an ass : ' and they saddled him." 

And, lastly, the Art of Eeading is the foundation of the 
Art of Speaking. If you would speak well, you should 
first leam to read well. The same play of emotion, the 
same command of voice, the same use of intonation, the 
same manner of expressing thought, that are required 
when you speak your own thoughts in your own lan- 
guage, are needed when you utter the thoughts of 
another in his language. It is for this reason that I 
have prefaced my purposed hints for oratory with some 
instructions in the arts of writing and reading, because 
the flow of thoughts, the right marshalling of them, and 
the putting of them into the most expressive language, 
is best learned in the Art of Writing ; how to utter 
them so that they may be most readily understood is 
best acquired by the Art of Eeading ; and these together 
form the foundation of the Art of Speaking, to which I 
now proceed without further preface. 



181 



Letter XXVII. 

THE ART OF SPEAKING. 

The Art of Speaking is based upon the Arts of 
Writing and Reading, which, are the proper introductions 
to it. Oratory is compounded of three ingredients — 
thoughts, words and utterance. You must have ideas 
or emotions which you desire to express ; you must 
have the right words in which to clothe them ; and you 
must speak those words in the manner that will bring 
them the most thoroughly into the minds of those who 
hear them. To adopt a popular phrase, the Art of 
Oratory presents itself in two great divisions — What to 
speak, and how to speak it. 

But oratory is something more than the Arts of Writ- 
ing and Reading combined. You may be able to write 
an excellent essay, and yet unable to compose a tolerable 
speech ; so you may read well, but speak badly. The 
Arts are, therefore, not identical, but they are very near 
of kin. Ceteris paribus, a good writer and reader will 
be a better speaker than he who writes imperfectly and 
reads badly. Almost all of the hints that have been 
given to you in former letters for learning how to write 



182 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



and how to read are equally applicable to learning how 
to speak. I do not purpose to repeat them, but, assum- 
ing that you have read them and given them such 
consideration as they may appear to you to deserve, 
I will begin by pointing out to you where they diverge, 
and what further you must do to accomplish yourself in 
the art that is the highest and ultimate object of your 
ambition. 

As before, I must guard myself from the imputation 
of vanity in attempting to teach you how to speak. I 
cannot pretend to be able to do all that I think ought to 
be done for the acquirement or the practice of oratory. 
I profess nothing more than to have given some thought 
to the subject, and traced some of its difficulties, and 
I hope therefore that I may be enabled to convey a few 
useful precepts, although I could exhibit no satisfactory 
example. 

As I have already stated, the first subject for con- 
sideration will be what to say, the second how to say it ; 
in other words, first, the matter, second, the manner. 

The composition of a speech, whether prepared or ex- 
tempore, will be considered with some care, and this will 
* be followed by hints for the art of uttering it in the 
manner most effective for its purpose. This will com- 
prise the cultivation of the voice and gesture, with the 
minor graces that constitute the finished orator. Hints 
for the study of these will be submitted to you. The 
various kinds of oratory, with the requirements of each, 
will be separately treated of, but with more especial 
reference to the oratory of the bar and of the platform, 
as those to which your practice will be most frequently 
directed. 

Such is the outline of the design contemplated for the 



XXVII. INTRODUCTION. 



183 



completion of the subject which I have sought to bring 
under your consideration in these letters. It involves 
many incidental topics, which I purpose to treat as they 
arise in association with the main thread of the argu- 
ment. As before, my aim is to offer you some practical 
hints for self -teaching, gathered from observation or 
suggested by reflection. I have no pretension to be 
myself an orator, but I do not write wholly from theory. 
The requirements of my profession have compelled me 
to give some attention to the art, and that which I 
learned with difficulty and labour, because I had no 
guide, I am desirous of conveying to you in a form 
which I hope may give you the sum of much tentative 
toil, and the benefit of combined thought and ex- 
perience. I do not place it before you as a system. I 
have constructed no elaborate scheme ; I have no for- 
mulas to prescribe, and scarcely anything to propound 
in the nature of positive rules. An orator, like a poet, 
must be born such ; he cannot be made. I can pretend 
to nothing more than to tell you what you should try 
to do and what you should endeavour to avoid, throwing 
out suggestions of apt means for cultivating the mental 
and physical faculties requisite to success. * 

But although you may be wanting in the capaci- 
ties needful to a great orator, you may certainly train 
yourself to be a good speaker — that is to say, you may 
learn to express your thoughts aloud, in language that 
makes them clearly intelligible to your audience, and in 
a manner that is not painful to them. The foundation 
of the Art of Speaking is, of course, the possession of 
ideas to be spoken. A speech cannot be constructed 
without thou 'j Ids of some kind to be expressed in words. 
You must fill your mind with ideas somehow. Wanting 



184 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



them, it is useless to attempt the art ; but, having them, 
the utterance of them, both in language and delivery, is to 
some extent a matter of training. The power of words 
is, indeed, denied to some men, though they are few ; 
more frequently the voice may be defective ; in other 
cases Nature has made gracefulness of manner impossible ; 
but these, though essential to oratory, are not necessary 
to speaking, and you may become a very tolerable 
speaker, though wanting in some, or deficient in all, of 
these qualities. Therefore, I exhort you not to be dismayed 
by seeming obstacles at the beginning. Be resolute in 
self -training ; proceed persistently in spite of repeated 
failure ; fear not to break down ; measure your faults, 
and put them to mending ; be earnest and unwearied in 
the pursuit of your object, and you will assuredly attain it. 

The uses of the art, its advantages to all men, but 
especially to a Lawyer, need no description. They must 
be patent to you, for everywhere you see men who have 
risen to the highest places solely by virtue of this 
accomplishment. In a free country it must ever be so. 
The man who can express powerfully what others feel, 
but are unable to express, wields the united power of all 
the minds of whom he is the exponent. There is no 
such personal influence as that enjoyed by the orator, 
for he not only implants his thoughts in other men, but 
directs them to action. The man who can stand up and 
speak aloud to an assembly a single sentence intelligibly 
has a faculty that sets him in effectiveness far above his 
fellows. Such an accomplishment is worth a great deal 
of patient industry to attain, and if I cannot pretend to 
teach it, I may, perhaps, be enabled to put you in the 
way of learning it, even although I am unable to practise 
my own preaching. 



185 



Letter XXVIII. 

FOUNDATIONS OF THE ART OF SPEAKING. 

Instinctively you will change the structure of the 
sentences, and the very words, to express the self-same 
thought in talking, in writing, and in speaking. But it 
does not therefore follow that you will instinctively 
frame your speech of the best words in the best places, 
and utter them in the most effective manner. These 
are matters for education, the product of artistic 
training and much practice. I have shown you before 
that reading is not a matter of course ; so neither does 
excellent oratory come from nature. You will often 
hear it asserted otherwise, and there seems to be a pre- 
valent impression, among those who have never given 
thought to the subject, that any man who can read 
words can pronounce them properly, that words will 
come when they are wanted, and that, if you find the 
words, you may be an orator without further labour. 
Few have formed the slightest conception of the number 
and variety of the qualifications essential to effective 
speaking — how the memory must be filled with facts 
and words : how the intellect must be cultivated 



186 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



to rapid understanding and still more rapid reasoning ; 
how the feelings must be at once powerful and 
under perfect control ; how the voice must be trained to 
give the full expression, and the taste to impart the true 
tones, infinitely varied, to the entire of the discourse. 
Then the mind must be exercised to a rapid now of ideas 
and to the instant composition of sentences wherein to 
clothe them ; add to these, a voice attuned to sweet- 
ness as well as power, and the limbs tutored to graceful 
action, and you have a short summary of the acquire- 
ments necessary for an orator. 

You will see from this that there is a task before you 
that will demand all your energies and perseverance, for 
it will be a work of long labour. You will say, perhaps, 
that there are books and teachers enough to help you to 
your object — books that profess to impart the whole art 
of oratory, and teachers of elocution who promise to 
make you an accomplished speaker in a certain number 
of lessons. As I have stated in the preceding letters on 
the Art of Beading, I have looked with care into many of 
these books, and listened to some of these teachers, and I 
must confess that I have found in them very little that was 
calculated to train a student to oratory. The rules pro- 
pounded are usually pedantic and often impracticable. 
Inasmuch as every student requires a different training, 
according to the specialties of his natural gifts — his 
peculiar intellect, temperament and physique — very few 
general rules can be prescribed ; so few, indeed, that it 
would be better to abolish the term and substitute merely 
hints and suggestions for strict formulas. Teachers of 
elocution too often impart to their pupils a mannerism 
that is more disagreeable than even positive incapacity. 
It is less painful to listen to an awkward or stumbling 



XXVIII. FOUNDATIONS OF THE ART. 187 

speaker than to a stiff, constrained and artificial orator, 
who is manifestly talking by rule. 

But the foundations of the Art of Oratory may be 
described in a few words. 

The first qualification of an Orator is to have some- 
thing 'to say. 

The second is to sit down when he has said it. 

These have been already described at some length in 
my Third Letter ; to that I refer you, asking you at 
this place to render repetition unnecessary by turning 
back to those pages, and reperusing them, for they cannot 
be too firmly imprinted upon your memory. 



188 



Letter XXIX. 

THE ART. OF SPEAKING— WHAT TO SAY— - 
COMPOSITION. 

It seenis like a truism to tell you that before you speak 
you should have something to say. But it is a neces- 
sary caution, for nothing is more common than to hear 
a man speak for a long time and utter nothing but 
words — words — -words — without a grain of thought at 
the heart of them. The popular ear so readily mistakes 
fluency for eloquence, and copious language for abundant 
wisdom, that ignorance and emptiness may be well 
excused for adventuring where real ability fears to tread. 
Now, as there is nothing easier than " bald disjointed 
chat," or speech "full of sound and fury, signifying — 
nothing," there is some danger of your falling into it, 
unless you resolve, from the beginning of your career, 
never to speak unless you have something to say, and 
then to say what you have to say, and sit down again 
when you have said it. 

All this appears very easy on paper, but it is very 
difficult in practice. A true orator must possess the full 
mind as well as the ready mind. He must know much, 



XXIX. WHAT TO SAY COMPOSITION. 189 



and think much ; he must open his eyes and ears 
to receive knowledge of all kinds from all quarters, 
and his mind must be ever busily at work reflecting 
upon the knowledge thus acquired. Indeed, there is no 
sort of intelligence that will not come into use at some 
time. I can. therefore, propose to you no scheme of 
studies wherewith to lay the foundation of oratory, for 
it is to be pursued everywhere, and comprises everything. 
The only rule I can give you is, to learn all that you 
can, from all sources and of all kinds. Practise the art 
of writing, as already suggested to you, diligently, as 
being the best preparation for oratory. The instruc- 
tions there given are to be pursued, but with another 
purpose. The Art of Writing will assist you to the Art 
of Speaking ; but it is not all that you require, and you 
must rightly understand and carefully keep in view the 
differences between them, which I will now endeavour 
to explain to you. 

There are three ways of expressing your thoughts, 
talking, writing and speaking. I use the familiar terms, 
because they convey my meaning more accurately than 
finer phrases. If you were required to express the same 
thought, or tell the same story, first, to a fireside circle, 
afterwards, in an article for a newspaper, and finally, in 
a speech to an assembly, you would certainly do so in 
three very different forms of composition, and in two, if 
not three, sets of words. If you had made no prepara- 
tion for either performance, you would fall unconsciously 
into the natural style appropriate to each situation. 
Only when you may have educated yourself into a bad 
habit of confounding the styles would you spout an essay 
or talk a speech. 

Talk differs from writing or a speech in this, that it is a 



190 



THE AST OF SPEAKING. 



broken, and not a continuous, stream of thought. Talking 
implies the participation of others in the discourse. If 
you have all the talk to yourself, it is not talking, but 
declamation or preaching ; that is to say, it is not an 
interchange of thoughts, but merely the utterance dog- 
matically of your own ideas. The manner is as diffe- 
rent as the matter ; you assume unconsciously the 
colloquial tone, which does not assert or affirm, but 
suggests, submits to consideration, puts an argument 
interrogatively, as if to say, "Do you not think so ? " 
" Is not that right ?" " Are you of the same opinion ?" 
"'What say you to it?" Thus stimulating conversa- 
tion by inviting the free expression of differences. You 
do not say of any proposition that "it is so," but that 
"'such is your view of it," " so it seems to you," and you 
ask if your companions "agree with you." Necessarily, 
your sentences are short, your words are expressive rather 
than select, and the perfection of talk is brilliant dia- 
logue. 

Now set yourself to write on the same subject ; how 
different will be the framework! You desire to express 
the same thoughts ; at once your mind falls into another 
mood. Now you discourse without let or hindrance ; 
you have it all your own way ; you do not look for in- 
terruption, nor invite dissent ; you make assertions, you 
pursue a course of argument, you say "it is," or "it is 
not ;" the stream of thought flows on continuously until 
it is exhausted. In accordance with these features of 
your thoughts is the composition of the language in 
which they are expressed. Your thoughts are distinctly 
conceived, your words are well weighed, your style is 
formal ; you arrange your words in a different order, 
studious of the strict rules of composition, that which is 



XXIX. WHAT TO SAY COMPOSITION. 191 

to be read permitting of transpositions forbidden to that 
which is to be spoken. 

But if you speak upon the same subject, although you 
desire to express the same thoughts, you will naturally 
do so in a different fashion. If you were to speak as 
you had written, you would probably be unintelligible 
to half your audience and uninteresting to all ; your 
discourse would appear intolerably starched, dogmatical 
and dry. The reason of this is, that the mind of the 
Hearer must follow the words of the Speaker as fast as 
he utters them, and unless those words conyey the 
thought at once, without sending the mind backwards 
or forwards in search of it, it falls by the way, or what 
is worse, it is misunderstood. The Reader can pause to 
reflect, he can reperuse any passage not instantly intel- 
ligible ; but if the listener does not seize it on the 
instant of its expression by the speaker, it is lost to 
him altogether, without hope of recovery. 

You will now see, I trust, wherein lies the difference 
between composition for speaking and for writing. 
Oratory requires, not only its own language, but its own 
composition ; the frame work in which a speaker's 
thoughts are set differs widely from that employed by 
the talker or the writer. The style is more formal than 
that of the former, and less formal than that of the latter. 
A speech that resembled talking would be an imperti- 
nence ; a speech like an essay would be a bore. You must 
learn the mean between them. Writing is, nevertheless, 
the foundation of speaking, and will be found the best 
practice to qualify you to be a speaker. You should write 
much upon the topics on which you expect to be required 
to speak much, and this for two purposes : first, to 
cultivate ideas upon them ; and. second, to learn how to 



192 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



express those ideas with precision. The habit of putting 
your thoughts into writing affords the only guarantee 
that those thoughts have substance in them, and are not 
merely vague and formless fancies. "When first you 
come to set down upon paper your ideas upon any sub- 
ject, however well acquainted with it you imagine your- 
self, you will be surprised to find how dreamy and 
shapeless are the thoughts you had supposed to be so 
distinct and symmetrical. The pen is a provoking fetter 
upon the flights of fancy ; but it is a wholesome cure, 
and makes you a sensible man instead of a dreamy fool. 
Write, therefore, often and much, preferring the subjects 
on which you may anticipate that you will be required 
to speak. 

But there is danger to be avoided. You write for the 
sake of acquiring clear and rapid thoughts and expres- 
sive words, and for nothing more. This is all that 
writing can teach you that will serve you in speaking. 
What more you may learn from the practice of writing 
will be injurious and will require strenuous exertions 
to avoid. I have told you already, that the framework 
of spoken thought differs widely from that of written 
thought. In so far as the style of written composition 
differs from that of speech, you must keep strict watch 
over yourself to prevent the practice becoming a habit. 
This is the difficulty and danger, for which I can sug- 
gest no way of escape save your own vigilance. It is 
something to know where danger lies, and you should 
keep the memory of it ever before you. Perhaps the best 
counteraction would be to revise, what you have written, 
thinking how you would have said the same thing had 
you spoken instead of written it, and sometimes even 
re-write it, as if it had been designed for a speech ; the 



XXIX. WHAT TO SAY— COMPOSITION, 198 

comparisons will show you the difference in the manner, 
and disturb the habit of throwing your thoughts into 
the peculiar form of written composition, which other- 
wise might become unmanageable. 



K 



194 



Letter XXX. 

CAUTIONS— HOW TO BEGIN. 

But the practice of writing a speech must be pursued 
with this caution, that you guard yourself against ac- 
quiring the mannerism that belongs to it, and which very 
little experience will teach you to detect in any speaker 
who has written his speech and recites it from memory. 
Both thoughts and words, in written discourse, uncon- 
sciously, and in spite even of your efforts to prevent it, 
array themselves in different order from that which they 
fall into when spoken. By recommending to you the 
practice of composition with the pen, I do not therefore 
design to encourage the writing of speeches. There is 
indeed no error against which I would more emphatically 
warn you ; but unless you can compose rapidly with the 
pen, you will not compose fluently from the lips ; you 
may, indeed, talk sound sense, but you will talk it so 
badly that it will be a pain to listen to you. 

The object of oratory is to influence your audience 
by convincing or persuading them ; by satisfying their 
judgments or kindling and attracting their sympathies. 
Your purpose is not, or ought not to be, to astonish 



XXX. CAUTIONS HOW TO BEGIN. 195 

tliem by ingenuity, or to gratify their tastes by your 
art. You appeal to their reason, or to their feelings, or 
to both, with intent to induce them to share your con- 
victions or your emotions. Hence the presence of 
earnestness on your part is necessary to your success. 
The mere appearance of conviction — an obvious sincerity 
of belief in the cause you are advocating — will often 
make more converts than the most unanswerable argu- 
ments ; and such is the sympathy of human feelings, 
that the presence of real emotion in you is sure to 
command the feelings of your hearers ; while the absence 
of it, or the show of it only, however well acted, will 
as certainly fail to carry an audience along with you. 
Thus mind is moved by mind ; thus feelings are stirred 
by feelings. The orator must never forget the poet's 
truth, 

That we have all of us one human heart. 
There are vast variances of intellect, in all degrees, 
from Shakespeare to an idiot. The intelligence of your 
audience varies immensely, the best certainly being not 
the most numerous. Taste, fancy, perception and com- 
prehension are as unlike in different persons as their 
features, and the full possession of them is as rare as 
beauty. But the emotions are nearly the same in all 
of us. of what class or training soever. Education 
cannot create nor neglect destroy them. Your most 
convincing appeals to the reason will be understood by 
few ; the brightest pictures of your fancy will call up 
the like pictures only with the select of your listeners ; 
your wit will be appreciated but by the most refined ; 
and your most exquisite language will be understood by 
those alone whose tastes have been cultivated like your 
own. But your emotions will find an echo in every 
K 2 



196 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



breast, even the rudest ; you will touch them simply by 
the force of sympathy. The just and the right will 
bring down applause, even from those who seldom do 
right or practise justice. Generous sentiments will be 
welcomed with hearty cheers ; righteous indignation will 
make the most sluggish bosom heave, and the dullest 
eye flash. If you doubt this, go to any public assembly 
and mark what most wins the ear and stirs the heart. 
Enter a theatre, and note what the galleries are the first 
to perceive and the heartiest to applaud. Not the wit, 
nor the wisdom, nor the loftiest flights of poetry ; but 
the generous sentiment, the noble deed, the true word, 
the honest indignation. 

Think of this when you find your audience cold and 
unsTOipathising. Be then assured that the fault is in 
yourself ; that you have not measured them aright ; that 
they are not of intelligence sufficiently large and lofty 
for the height of your great argument. But bethink 
you also that they are men, and, if they have not minds, 
they assuredly have hearts. Cease to talk to the intel- 
lect and appeal to the feelings, and you will certainly 
succeed — -if to succeed be your ambition. 

And that is the purpose of speaking. The object of 
oratory is to move your audience. If you desire to per- 
suade the distant or the future, you appeal to them 
through the pen and the printing press. If you strive 
after both effects, you will probably fail in both, for the 
manner of address is different. You will never carry 
an audience with you by a spoken essay ; you will never 
captivate a reader by a printed oration. The utmost that 
can be said of a recited discourse is, " How very clever ! " 
The utmost you can say of an oration you read is, 
" How that would have moved me if I had heard it! " 



XXX. CAUTIONS HOW TO BEGIN, 



197 



Have, then, these maxims ever before you : — 
That the one purpose of oratory is to persuade your 
audience. 

That an appeal to the sentiments and feelings of a 
mixed audience is always more effective than an appeal 
to their reason. 

That to kindle emotions in your hearers you must 
yourself be moved. 

But you must not begin your practice of written com- 
position by writing speeches. Begin with a plain nar- 
rative in the plainest words. Eschew fine writing. Do 
not think it necessary to adopt a new language because 
you have a pen in your hand and paper before you. 
The fit words will come when you have clear thoughts 
and they have learned to flow freely. Take courage— 
and it does require some courage at first — -to call a spade 
by its proper name, "a spade ; " that name will give a 
more correct idea of the thing you wished to . say than 
any possible periphrasis. By way of beginning, relate 
some incident you may have witnessed ; resolve to de- 
scribe it precisely as you saw it, and as you would have 
told it to a friend in the street, with no more effort as 
to the manner of telling it. You will be surprised to 
find how difficult this is. Nevertheless go on ; say 
something. Do it as well as you can. Having done it, 
read it aloud. You will doubtless be ashamed of the 
senseless jumble. But you may spare your blushes ; 
you have failed in common with many of unquestioned 
capacity. In truth, the thing you have been striving to 
do is the most difficult achievement in composition — the 
last to which experience attains. To say what you have 
to say in few but simple words is the highest accomplish- 
ment of the art. Be not therefore disheartened ; correct 



198 



THE ART OF SPEAKING, 



the work you have done ; or, better still, if yon have a 
practised friend, ask him to go through it with you, point 
out your faults, and make you correct it in his presence, 
correction upon correction, until the work assumes a 
decent shape. And in the performance of this process, 
write each improved edition below the former one, so 
that you may compare the last with the first, and any 
one with any other, and trace the march of improve- 
ment and learn the faults to be avoided. 

From plain narrative proceed to essay, to argument, 
to declamation, to poetry — very necessaiy to accustom 
you to give the glow of colour to your thoughts and 
music to your words. It matters not that your prose 
and your poetry are equally unfit for publication ; that 
is not your object. Think not of it as such, but solely as 
a lesson which you may thrust into the fire as soon as it 
is finished. Indeed, better that you do so, and then it 
will never cause you to be put to shame through the 
vanity of appearing in print with them, Write as many 
lines to Celia and Delia as you please ; the more of them 
the better for your education in oratory ; but have the 
courage to burn them before the ink is dry. At last, 
when you are well practised, when you can write with 
tolerable fluency and correctness, with some thoughts in 
what you write, — not stifled in a cloud of fine words, or 
disguised in roundabout phrases, or the nouns buried 
beneath the adjectives,— begin to write imaginary 
speeches in a modest way. 

To do this rightly you must surround yourself with 
an ideal audience, and you may further become, in 
fancy, any orator of fame ; or, what is better, imagine 
yourself an orator, winning the ears and moving the 
hearts of an excited and admiring multitude. Choose 



XXX. CAUTIONS— HOW TO BEGIN. 



199 



for your theme some topic of the day that may have 
interested you, and upon which you have feelings, and 
perhaps believe that you have decided opinions, large 
and liberal. Before you begin to write, close your eyes, 
not to go to sleep, but the better to bring the picture 
before the eye of the mind, and then think what you 
would say to charm such an audience as your fancy has 
conjured up. You will experience a rush of fine thoughts 
and eloquent words. Seize your pen instantly, and set 
them down. Why do you pause before half-a-dozen 
words are inscribed, — -bite your pen, — write another 
word or two, — pause again, — draw your pen through the 
writing, write another word, erase that — and then close 
your eyes and address yourself again to thought ? 
Wherefore are not the thoughts that came so quickly 
before you began to write as quickly caught and fixed 
upon the paper ; and where are the words that then 
flowed so richly ? Ah ! when you come to put them 
into shape, you learn how merely fanciful they were ; 
how unsubstantial the ideas, how chaotic the language ! 
It was to teach you this truth that you were recom- 
mended to write. It is the surest means of learning 
the lesson of your incapacity, and it is at the same time 
its best remedy. The first step is now taken, and a 
most important one it is. You have learned that an 
ordinary array of thoughts clothed in appropriate 
language is not attained without diligent study, long- 
labour, and much practice. The path is now cleared 
of the obstruction of self-confidence ; you know your 
weakness, and what you have really to acquire, and 
therefore you are in a condition to begin the work of 
self -teaching. You will commence with an attempt to 
write a speech. 



200 



Letter XXXI. 

THE FIRST LESSON— WRITING A SPEECH 

Do not be discouraged by the difficulties : all that is 
worth having is difficult to be pursued at first. In 
despite of pauses, pen-bitings and obliterations, still, I 
say, persevere. Every successive sentence will be easier 
to compose than was its predecessor. Yet, I repeat 
again and again, remember that you must have some- 
thing to say. Be assured that you have really a distinct 
and definite conception in your mind of an idea which 
you desire to convey to other minds. So long as you 
are merely thinking, you cannot be sure that your 
thought is clear. Is it an argument, — often you jump 
at the conclusion without regarding the intermediate 
steps; your sentiments are still more frequently but 
indistinct emotions, which you mistake for thoughts ; 
and the imperfections in your narrative do not force 
themselves upon your attention until you are compelled 
to put it into shape. Hence, at the beginning, it is neces- 
sary that you should test yourself by trial in private, 
before you risk the chance of learning your defects by 
a public failure. The best gauge of your power to think 



XXXI. THE FIRST LESSON, &0. 



201 



is to write your thoughts ; for thus you learn what your 
thoughts are worth, as well as in what words to express 
them. 

Therefore, before you attempt to speak a speech, 
write one. Choose your theme, and ask yourself 
this plain question, "What do I want to say about 
this subject ? " 

In speech you may say much that would be inad- 
missible in writing. Written declamation is disagreeable, 
but declamation may be employed with great effect in 
speech. The structure of the sentence differs in the two 
forms of discourse, and the very language is unlike. A 
spoken essay would be as intolerable as a written oration. 
In the essay, we look for thoughts ; in the speech, mainly 
for sentiments and emotions. The former is supposed 
to be the utterance of profound reflection in skilfully 
constructed sentences ; the latter is the outpouring of 
the mind in the words that rush to the tongue, regard- 
less of the orderly array prescribed to deliberate com- 
position. 

Nevertheless, you should try to write a speech before 
you attempt to speak one. But write it as you would 
speak it. To do this you must exercise your imagination, 
and suppose yourself in the presence of an audience, 
upon your feet, about td address them on some theme 
familiar to you ; and acting, as it were, as your own 
reporter. Doubtless you believe your mind to be full 
of fine ideas and your brain overflowing with apt words 
wherein to clothe them. Before you have written three 
lines, you will be amazed to discover that those crowding 
thoughts are very shadowy and indefinite, those thick 
coming fancies little better than dreams, and the glow- 
ing words extremely reluctant to fall into orderly array, 
k 3 



202 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



In fact, you will find that you have yet to learn your 
lesson, and to do so you must begin with the rudiments 
of the art. 

And great, indeed, will be the value of this first les- 
son, ,if only it should teach you thus much— that you 
have everything to learn. The first step to all know- 
ledge is the knowledge of our ignorance. 

You will find your pen halting for thoughts and words ; 
or, if you try to dash along, careless of what you write, 
you will be displeased with yourself when you read what 
you have written. But be of good courage ; already by 
your failure you have taken a long step towards success. 
Now you have measured your incapacity and the diffi- 
culties to be conquered even at the threshold of your 
study. You will thenceforward make rapid progress, 
with the help of patience and perseverance. 

No matter how slowly the work is done — do it. Com- 
plete your exercise in some shape, however clumsy. The 
express purpose of this first lesson is not so much to 
teach you what to do, as to convince you by experiment 
what you cannot do. 

Having made two or three trials in this way, until 
you are able to express some definite thoughts in definite 
language, you may advance to the next process and 
attempt the construction of a formal speech — this also 
in writing, but written precisely as you would have 
spoken it — in the style and language of oratory. Begin 
by sketching an outline of your proposed treatment of 
the theme. Asking yourself " What have I to say about 
it?" note in two or three suggestive words the ideas as 
they occur to you in your meditation. Afterwards 
arrange these in orderly fashion, so that the discourse 
may assume something like a logical shape, the parts 



XXXI. THE FIRST LESSON, &C. 



203 



of it appearing to grow naturally out of one another, 
with a definite beginning and a definite end. 

This done, expand the "headings" into a speech, 
still bearing in mind that you are supposed to be 
talking, not writing. When it is completed, stand up, 
paper in hand, and spout your performance to the tables 
and chairs. Thus you will learn if it comes trippingly 
on the tongue, and likewise something of its sound. As 
yet you need not be over-critical upon its merits as a 
composition. Doubtless it is full of faults ; somewhat 
stilted, flowery in language, abounding in what the 
Americans call " bunkum," and on the whole unsatis- 
factory. Every young orator falls into these faults. 
Fine talking and fine writing are the universal sins of 
inexperience, certain to be corrected by time. There is 
only one defect that is never cured, one fault for which 
there is no hope — the penny-a-lining style, significantly 
called " the high polite." The mind once taken pos- 
session of by that modern jargon, never throws it off ; 
perhaps because the infection can be caught only by a 
mind essentially vulgar and conceited, and the presence 
of it proves incapacity even for the appreciation of 
something better. 

Your language cannot be too simple, by which I mean, 
plain, pure Saxon English. It is at once intelligible 
to the common people, and pleasing to the educated 
taste. It is one of the secrets of the success of all 
the great popular orators. English — the English of the 
Bible, of Shakespeare, of Defoe, of Bunyan, of Dry den, 
of Swift — is singularly expressive and pictorial ; and 
being for the most part the language of daily life, it is 
instinctively understood by an audience who are not 
required to pause upon a word to reflect what the 



204 



THE AET OF SPEAKING. 



speaker means by it, thus certainly falling behind him in 
the discourse. After you have written your imaginary 
speech, read it over twice or thrice, for the sole purpose 
of detecting and changing words for which a more 
homely expression can be found, and do not rest content 
with your performance until every foreign word for 
which there is a Saxon equivalent has been banished ; 
and whenever you alight upon a "high polite " word or 
phrase, oat with it, even if you are obliged^ to substitute 
the longest word in the dictionary. Magniloquence is 
simply silly ; the penny-a-lining style is horribly vulgar. 

Carefully eschew metaphors, similes, and the flowers 
of speech. The tendency of all young orators, as of 
young writers, is to lavish them profusely, and they are 
wont to measure their own merits, and perhaps the 
merits of others, by the extent of that kind of orna- 
ment. Good taste does not banish them altogether, but 
it prescribes the use of them so rarely, and only on such 
appropriate themes and special opportunities, that your 
safest course will be to exclude them wholly from your 
first endeavours, and only to permit their introduction 
when you have made more progress, and then rarely 
and where their aptitude is very apparent. A flowery 
speaker may attract at first, but he soon wearies ; and 
wheresoever oratory is to be applied to the practical 
uses of life, as in the Senate or at the Bar, the orator 
who indulges largely in ornament of this kind will soon 
weary and disgust an audience intent upon business. 

These hints for the general structure of a speech may 
perhaps assist you in that which I again recommend to 
you for your first lesson — the writing of a speech, as 
nearly as you can in the very words in which you would 
desire to speak it. 



205 



Letter XXXIL 

THE ART OF SPEAKING— FIRST LESSONS. 

The speech being thus written, stand and speak it, 
giving full play to the voice, but using no action. 
Imagine the furniture to be an audience, and " get up" 
all the fervour you can to address them. The object of 
this is two-fold : partly to practise you in the mechanics 
of oratory, but mainly to enable you to detect faults in 
your composition that might not be discovered by the 
eye or the mind. When you utter it aloud, your tongue 
and your ear together will speedily inform you if you 
are wanting in some of the graces of oratory, or have 
indulged too much in its conceits. A sentence, smooth 
to the mental ear when read "to yourself," will tune 
harsh discords and unpleasing notes when spoken by the 
tongue ; a phrase that seemed most potent when you 
conceived it, is found to be most pitiful when you bring 
it forth ore rotundo ; a sentiment that occupied a quarter 
of an hour in its development, stumbles upon the lips 
and falls flat upon the ear. As you discover these 
defects, mark them upon the manuscript and correct 
them. Then read again, and observe the improvements 



206 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



and the defects that remain. Treat these in the same 
manner, until they have disappeared and yon can read 
right through the paper without offence to your ear or 
your good taste. This is all you should attempt in the 
form of reading. You must not use action, for it is 
impossible to use fit action while the eye is fixed upon 
a book or paper, and ungainly movements are more 
easily acquired than shaken off again. The primary 
purpose of this lesson in self -teaching is the composition. 
and not the utterance, of a speech — that will be treated 
of presently. 

When you have thus written and recited half-a-dozen 
speeches, you will probably compose them with increased 
rapidity and manifest improvement in form and language. 
So soon as you feel the thoughts flowing with ease, and 
shaping themselves into words without an effort, throw 
the pen aside and try to make a speech impromptu. 

Let your first trial of impromptu speaking be with 
one of the subjects which you have written upon and 
recited as a speech. Throw it aside, and try to make 
the same speech, not by repetition from the memory, 
but by invention as you speak. Some memories are too 
powerful to permit of this ; they would recall the very 
words that were written, and not the mere thoughts in 
their orderly array ; in such case it would be only read- 
ing by the mental instead of the bodily eye, and the 
object of the practice would be lost. But when the 
memory is not so retentive, and recalls only the scheme 
of the composition, try to make an extempore speech on 
the same theme, treated in the same manner. Now, 
as ever, when you utter your thoughts directly from the 
lips, mind addressing mind through no other medium 
than the voice, you may use action, not studied, not even 



XXXII. THE ART OF SPEAKING, &C. 



207 



considered at the moment, but such as you adopt uncon- 
sciously. How to utter a speech, and what action to 
use with it, will be subjects for special consideration 
hereafter. 

You will doubtless feel some mortification at the issue 
of this your first trial : it will be a failure ; your thoughts 
will be confused ; the words will not come, or come out 
of place ; you will hesitate, stumble, and possibly stand 
still. Be not discouraged at this ; it is the fate of all 
beginners of good promise. Better so than glibly to 
pour out a stream of weak words not freighted with 
ideas. There is no more fatal symptom than this sort 
of facility in a beginner. The limits of his success are 
soon found ; practice increases the rapidity and not the 
depth of the stream that flows from his lips. You have 
halted and stumbled and broken down, because you 
carried weight. You wanted to say something definite 
in language as definite. This is an art that does not 
come by nature, save perhaps to wonderful genius once 
in a century. Common minds must learn by experience 
to think clearly, to sustain continuous thought, to clothe 
those thoughts in words as speedily as the tongue can 
utter them, and then to express them in tones pleasing 
to those who hear. That is the accomplishment after 
which you are striving, and it can be attained only by 
perseverance and patience ; failure -must precede success, 
and let it be your consolation that failure is the pathway 
to success. 

Fortunately, by the method of self-teaching that 
I have suggested, your discomfiture will be known only 
to yourself. Better to break down in a private room 
than in a public meeting. At least, the chairs will not 
jeer you ; shame will not be added to disappointment. 



208 



THE AET OF SPEAKING. 



Try again ; yon can afford ever so many failnres in this 
arena. Briefly review the argument or plan of the 
speech, and then renew the effort. Mark wherein you 
fail ; if it is that you forget the order of the subjects, or 
if you cannot array your thoughts in orderly fashion, or 
if your words do not come readily or in right array. If 
it be that the plan of the discourse fades away from your 
mind, you should assist the memory by making a very 
brief sketch of the successive subjects upon a slip of 
paper — suggestions merely of two or three words — and 
keep this before you, to assist you in a moment of dis- 
tress, using it without scruple. Even the most prac- 
tised orators may resort to this help, and most of them 
do so. If the fault is in the flow of the words, there is 
no such remedy — indeed, I can suggest none to you but 
practice. And so with the orderly array of words ; this, 
too, is partly a gift of nature, but to be vastly improved 
by cultivation ; and even where nature is defective, 
labour and long practice will cure the defect, as may be 
seen at the Bar, where it is of continual occurrence that 
men, who at the beginning appeared to be almost want- 
ing in words, and who were unable to put the simplest 
thought into the plainest language, by much practice 
become correct and easy, if not positively fluent, speakers. 

I assume that you have something to say when I throw 
out these hints to you for learning to say it. If your 
mind is vacant of thought, it is in vain that you attempt 
to become an orator ; better abandon that ambition, and 
devote yourself to some mechanical pursuit for which 
nature has more fitted you. But be not in too great a 
hurry to arrive at the conclusion that your case is hope- 
less. The thoughts may be there, but lying in confu- 
sion, or not sufficiently definite ; or they may be slow 



XXXII. THE ART OF SPEAKING, &C. 209 

to move, or difficult to marshal ; all these are defects to 
be cured ; if only the thoughts are there in some shape, 
you can learn, with more or less of labour, to bring 
them into use. If, for instance, you find that with your 
pen you can say something sensible upon any theme, 
you may be assured that you can do the like with your 
tongue, and that the obstacle, wherever it is, may be 
removed by skill and diligence. Your case is only 
hopeless when, after many trials, you can find nothing 
to say, and worse still, when words come freighted with 
nothing but sound and fury. 

If it is that the thoughts are there, but you cannot 
evoke them, the remedy is to write — write — write — 
until the mind falls into the habit of thinking definitely 
and orderly, and of yielding up its thoughts readily. 
This process is slow, but it is certain. You may not 
measure your progress week by week, but compare month 
by month, and you will discover the improvement. Try 
it by time. Note how many minutes are occupied in 
filling a page of your paper ; a month afterwards note 
them again, and so forth, and you will see what progress 
you have made. Compare the composition of this month 
with that of last month, and you will learn the steady 
advance in precision and power of expression. When 
you can write with tolerable fluency, begin again the 
attempt to speak. At first you may be baffled, for such 
is the strange force of habit, that ideas which flow fast 
through the pen often refuse to come to the lips. But 
this is only a habit, and may be disturbed by the same 
perseverance that formed it. Persist in the attempt to 
say readily what you have written without difficulty. 
Begin by asking yourself this question, " What is it I 
want to say on this subject : what should I say were I 



210 



THE AET OF SPEAKING. 



to write it?" Answer the question aloud — not, in the 
first instance, standing up, but sitting down, in the very 
attitude in which you would have written, lacking only 
the pen and paper. Utter aloud, in any words that 
offer, the idea you have to express. Eepeat it two or 
three times. Then stand up and repeat it again ; still 
not oratorically, but as if you were telling a friend in 
ordinary conversation what are your notions on the par- 
ticular topic. Then repeat it in more formal phrase- 
ology, and with some of the tones of a speech ; and, 
finally, try to make a speech of it. This is a tedious 
process, it is true ; but the defect to be conquered is 
formidable, and can be only be cured by patient perse- 
verance. 

All these first lessons in oratory are to be practised in 
private. They are designed as preliminary training to 
the public exercise, which is certainly more efficient, 
because there is about it the stimulus of reality ; but it 
has also the nervousness that so often leads to failure, 
and you face the unpleasant consequences of failure 
itself when more persons will certainly be found to laugh 
at you than to pity you. These suggestions are not 
designed as a substitute for the ordeal of actual practice, 
but only for such preparation for it as may conduce to 
more certainty of success, or, at least, to the avoidance 
of ignominious failure, the fear of which has deterred 
so many who possessed the capacities of an orator, and 
the experience of which has sent many a promising man 
back into obscurity, whence he has not found qourage 
again to emerge, although there was in him the material 
out of which success might have been achieved, had 
pains been taken to prepare for the trial. 



211 



Letter XXXIII. 

PUBLIC SPEAKING. 

You may now make your first attempt to speak in 
public. 

If possible, select the occasion. Do not trust yourself 
to say something about anything — which usually amounts 
to saying nothing — but avail yourself of the discussion of 
some subject to which you have given some thought, 
and on which you can say something. 

Turn the subject over in your mind ; think how you 
shall treat it — what general view you can take of it ; 
how you shall arrange your ideas upon it so that they 
may be presented in orderly array, and connected link 
by link into a chain of argument. 

Having planned it roughly in thought, put your plan 
upon paper. 

But only in outline. Do not provide the words ; note 
down nothing but the subjects to be treated, with the 
order of treatment. Trust entirely to the impulse of 
the moment to provide words wherein to express your 
thoughts ; but let those thoughts be firmly fixed in 
your memory. 



212 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



Some famous orators are accustomed, in addition to 
this outline of the argument, to compose the peroration 
and recite it from memory. It is, however, a question 
of doubtful expediency at all times, and I would 
especially counsel you, as a beginner, not to resort to it. 

There are many objections to a written speech. In 
the first place, you are dependent upon your memory, 
and if that should fail, your discomfiture is complete — 
you break down altogether ! Few memories are so 
perfect as to preserve their power when the mind is 
otherwise disturbed. The fear of failure is very likely 
to be the cause of failure. A single word forgotten 
causes alarm and hesitation, and while you are trying to 
recall that word, others fade away, and in the accumu- 
lated confusion a whole sentence disappears. You 
hesitate, }^ou stammer, you try back — in the hopeless 
chaos you are lost. From this danger the speaker of 
a written speech is never safe ; it may occur at any 
moment, and the result is always humiliating. 

But there is another objection to written speeches ; 
they can never be effective ; and for this reason, that 
they are projected by a process altogether different from 
that of an extempore speech. What you have first 
written, then committed to memory, and now proceed 
to deliver by the lips, you utter by a process that is 
little better than mechanical. The memory is the only 
mental faculty engaged in the operation, and your whole 
attention is concentrated upon the work of recalling the 
words you have learned. This process within you is 
distinctly manifested to your audience ; it is betrayed 
in face, in tone, in gesture, and your speech, wanting 
soul, fails to move souL 

But when you speak from the prompting of your 



XXXIII. PUBLIC SPEAKING. 213 

intellect, the whole mind is engaged in the operation ; 
you say what you think, or feel, at the moment of 
utterance, and therefore you say it in the tones and with 
the expression that nature prompts, without an effort 
on your part. It is a law of our being that mind is 
moved by mind. There is a secret sympathy by which 
emotion answers to emotion, and your feelings stir the 
like, feelings in your fellow-man. But no feigned 
emotions, however skilfully enacted, can accomplish 
this. You may admire the skill of the performer, but 
you do not feel with him. 

Again, the language of a written speech is altogether 
different from extempore expression. The mind, when 
it discourses through the pen, throws itself, as it were,, 
into a different attitude from that which it assumes 
when speaking through the lips. The structure of 
the sentences is different ; the words are different ; 
there is a difference in the array of the thoughts. 
Written composition is obedient to rules. There are 
certain conventional forms of expression, so unlike the 
language of speaking that they betray themselves in- 
stantly to a practised ear ; and although an unskilled 
audience might not know the cause, they show the effect 
in uneasiness, and complain of stiffness and dullness in 
the orator. Therefore, never write a speech, but only 
give it careful thought and set down the heads of it in 
the order in which you propose to treat them. 

Thus armed, and screwing up your courage for an 
ordeal whose severity I have no wish to underrate, go to 
the meeting at which you are to make the first real 
trial of your capacities. To be forewarned is to be 
forearmed; and therefore I will tell you what you will 
feel. 



214 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



If the audience be a large one, so much the better ; 
it is easier to address a crowd than a small company. 
You are not scared by a multitude of eyes, but by the 
fixed gaze of a limited circle. The aspect of an 
assembly from a platform is very remarkable. Being 
raised so much above them, and all faces being turned 
up and eyes fixed on you, the consciousness of indivi- 
duality is lost ; you recognise nobody in particular, and 
the whole seems like one personage having as many 
eyes as a fly. No beginner ever looked on this sea of 
eyes without more or less of fear, or when he looked at 
it saw anything but eyes. But try to make it familiar 
by an attentive survey of it while you are waiting your 
turn to speak, if that be possible when you are intently 
thinking what you will say and how you will say it. 
Anxious you will be, if there is anything in you ; some 
fear is inseparable from the modesty that accompanies 
genuine capacity ; but, in spite of anxiety and fear, let 
it be your resolve to go on, come what come may. 

At length it is your turn. As the time approaches, 
your heart will begin to flutter, and then to thump 
audibly against your ribs, and there will be a curious 
creeping of the flesh, growing almost to a shiver, while 
your cheeks are burning and your head is throbbing. 
You stand up. Your knees tremble ; your hand shakes ; 
the sea of eyes swims before you and vanishes into a 
dark mist ; you are conscious of nothing but the lights. 
Suddenly your tongue becomes dry, and, worse than all, 
your memory fails you, and you feel it failing. Be 
thankful now that you have not trusted your speech to 
it. These symptoms have been experienced, more or 
less, by every man who has achieved the art of oratory : 
and some I have known who never escaped from them 



XXXIII. PUBLIC SPEAKING, 



215 



entirety — the trembling knees and parched tongue 
attending the first sentences uttered in all their speeches, 
however frequent. Few there are who succeed in avoid- 
ing them altogether. 

But go on. Say something, however dislocated or 
unmeaning ; anything is better than silence. A little 
hesitation at the beginning of a speech is never unbe- 
coming, and is often highly effective. One of the best 
and most practised speakers I ever listened to opened 
with stammering voice and imperfect sentences, and 
seemed continually on the point of breaking down ; 
but as he warmed in the work, words began to 
flow and self-possession to return, until he rose to 
eloquence that held his audience in delighted thraldom 
for three hours. In this, as in all the business of life, 
he who has not courage to fail must not hope to achieve 
success. Do not venture at all unless you are resolved 
to go through with it. Even if you cannot collect your- 
self sufficiently to say the sensible things you intended 
to say, do not give it up, but talk on ; for you may be 
assured of this, that half your audience will give you 
credit for having some meaning in your words, though 
they cannot exactly find it out, and if words come freely 
will think you a fine speaker, regardless of their sense 
or nonsense. There is but one hopeless failure — coming 
to a full stop. But it is probable that, after you have 
conquered the first terror at the consciousness of lost 
memory and scattered thoughts, when you find your 
audience still patient and listening, your self-command 
will return and you will make a triumphant ending. 

Whatever the issue of that first trial, try again. Be 
not daunted even by failure. Practice will overcome 
all difficulties. If you have planned a formal speech, 



216 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



the structure of it will be present to your mind ; if 
you throw yourself upon the inspiration of the moment, 
thoughts will arise as they are summoned, and where 
thoughts are, words will not be wanting. 

Do not, as many do, make preparation for your 
speeches on all occasions, great or little. There is a 
time for talking, and a time for speaking, and a time for 
making a set oration. Choose your time and adapt 
yourself to the subject. Nothing is more indecorous 
than a flight of oratory out of place. The occasions 
that properly demand an oration rarely offer even to the 
most practised speaker. The larger portion of your 
speeches will be upon commonplace themes or matters 
of business, when your address should be but lengthened 
talk. To do this well is as difficult and almost as 
rare as to make a great speech on a great topic. I 
purpose to describe this particularly when I come to 
treat of the various forms of oratory. The subject at 
present under consideration is your general practice as a 
beginner, and how best you may perfect yourself in the 
art, without reference to the special applications of it, 
which will come to be considered when we have reviewed 
the accomplishments you should labour to acquire for 
the purpose of doing most effectively that which you 
must be presumed now to have learned to do without 
positive failure. 



217 



Letter XXXIV. 

DELIVERY. 

Acquire the art of saying something so as to be under- 
stood by your audience without much effort and with- 
out hesitation for words or thoughts, before you study 
how to say it. In the due order of learning, manner 
should follow matter. If you attempt to learn both 
at the same time, you will probably fail in both. You 
will find it quite as much as you can do, in the begin- 
ning of your practice, to concentrate your mind upon the 
production of thoughts and words. If to this you add 
the labour of thinking how you should utter such a sen- 
tence, and what action you should assume with another, 
you will be in danger of losing the thread of your 
discourse. Not until practice has given you self-com- 
mand, an orderly flow of ideas, and ready words, should 
you make a study of manner. 

I say, " make a study" of it, because a great deal 
comes by nature. When you feel, and speak what you 
feel, there is a natural language of emotion that ex- 
presses itself unconsciously : and often most perfectly 
where there has been the least teaching. But, although 

L 



218 



THE AET OF SPEAKING. 



this will lielp you to a certain extent, it will not do to 
rely upon it entirely, and for the reason that a very 
considerable portion of your oratory will be expended 
on subjects that do not excite the feelings, in which case 
your success will depend upon the form wherein you 
set common-places before your audience. Moreover, the 
orator endowed with the best natural graces may learn 
something from art, which is — or ought to be- — the 
lesson of combined experience and reflection. My 
present purpose is to give you some hints for delivery of 
a speech, preparatory to the concluding letters on the 
characteristics of the various kinds of oratory. 

The first consideration is, to make yourself heard. 
This is no such easy matter as you may suppose. Go 
to any assembly where there is a diversity of speakers, 
and especially if among them there are many amateurs, 
and you will find that, standing at a distant part of the 
room, you can hear nothing but an inarticulate murmur. 
Even with those whose business it is to be speakers, as 
clergymen and lawyers, this is a frequent failing. The 
orators and their friends set it to the account of weak 
lungs. That is a delusion. Such a physical defect may 
occur now and then ; but in nine cases in ten the 
lungs have nothing at all to do with it ; the fault is 
wholly in the management of the voice ; the notes are 
there, but the speaker will not open his mouth and send 
them out. 

You must begin by measuring the space you are to 
fill. To do this there is no need to count by rule, or to 
say to yourself, " those people are so many yards from 
me ; I must raise my voice so much." There is no 
scale determining that such a tone is good for so many 
feet, and such another for so many more. But there is 



XXXIV. DELIVERY. 



219 



something better than a rule to guide you. Nature 
teaches you. If you do not think about it, by a kind of 
instinct you proportion your voice to the distance from 
you of the person you address. If. therefore, you would 
be heard by the whole assembly, look at the most 
distant person, and address him. In obedience to this 
law of the voice, it will adapt itself to the distance, and, 
being heard by him, you must be heard by all. 

If, upon trial of this, you find that your voice still 
fails to be thrown so far, or that it requires a painful 
exertion on your part, you may know that there 
is some defect in the management of your voice, and 
you should proceed to search for it, with resolve to. 
remove it. 

First, assure yourself that you are not too loud. 
There is a degree of loudness that both thickens your 
own voice and deafens your audience. If the making 
of the sound is an effort, you may be sure that you are 
too loud. Eemember that you are seeking to convey 
to your audience articulate sounds, distinguished by the 
most delicate shades, and these disappear when the voice 
is raised beyond a certain pitch. The actors in the 
largest theatres do not speak loud, but they speak out, 
and they speak clearly, in a key slightly raised above 
that used in a room. This is your rule also. Speak up ; 
speak out. 

Open your mouth ; do not speak through your teeth, 
or your nose ; neither mutter, nor whine, nor snuffle. 
Take especial pains to shun these frequent faults, and 
invite some honest friend to tell you plainly if he can 
detect any traces of either in your manner. If so it be, 
strive earnestly to shake them off at the beginning, for 
they grow into incurable habits with formidable 
l 2 



220 



THE ART OF SPEAKING, 



rapidity. Continue to consult your friend's ear until 
every trace of them shall be removed. 

There is much in the tone of a speaker's voice ; next 
to words it most influences an audience. The same thing 
said in two different tones will have entirely different 
effects, and even convey different meanings. Undoubtedly 
nature in this is more potent than art. Some voices are 
naturally incompetent to express great variances of tone, 
although the failure is more frequently in the feeling 
than in the voice. The latter is not in the right tone 
because the former is not in the right place. It is 
difficult to prescribe any rules for acquiring tone, for it 
is not so much an art as an instinct. Tone is nature's 
language. The best advice I can give you is to culti- 
vate it by cultivating the emotions by which it is attained, 
Cherish fine sympathies with God, and nature, and 
humanity, with all that is holy, and good, and beautiful, 
and the feelings so kindled will utter themselves in true 
tones, that will touch the kindred chords in those who 
listen to you. 

For practice, read aloud passages of oratory, or in the 
drama, that embody stirring emotions, and thence 
you will learn confidence in yourself when you require 
to express the real and not the simulated feeling. 

Another rule is to raise your voice at the end of every 
sentence, instead of dropping it, as is the unpleasant 
habit of your countrymen. I have already remarked 
upon this when treating of reading, but I must recur to 
it here, lest its application to speaking also should be 
overlooked. It is good for yourself and for your 
audience. It compels you to maintain an even range 
of voice, which, if declining at the close of a sentence, 
is apt to begin the next sentence somewhat lower than 



XXXIY. . DELIVERY. 221 

the preceding one, until the entire pitch of the voice 
declines, insensibly to yourself. The practice of raising 
the voice at the close of the sentence should therefore 
be cherished until it becomes a habit, and is performed 
without an effort and even without consciousness on 
your part. 

The natural defects of voice, as hoarseness, harshness 
and squeaking, can scarcely be prescribed for by written 
rules. They may be cured, though rarely ; they may 
in all cases be relieved by judicious teaching and patient 
effort. But in all such cases a teacher should be sought. 
The sufferer is not likely to be conscious of his defect, 
and his own ear is too much accustomed to it to inform 
him if the remedy is prospering. Let him apply to 
some experienced teacher of elocution, who will put him 
through the course of training necessary to subdue the 
mischief, and who will listen as he speaks, and lead him 
by slow steps to improvement. 

More important to clear speaking than even command 
of the voice is distinct articulation. You must study 
to pronounce, not words only, but syllables, and even 
letters. In the rapidity of talk, rightly used in con- 
versation, we English habitually clip our words, slur 
our syllables, and skip our letters. The genius of our 
spoken language is for abbreviation ; we cut short every 
sound capable of condensation, and cast off every super- 
fluous word. It is for this reason that written discourse 
is so different from spoken thoughts that it is almost 
impossible so to put the latter upon paper, and after- 
wards to repeat them from memory, that a critical ear 
shall not discover the presence of the pen. The com- 
position of a speech lies midway between the written 
essay and common talk. It is less formal than the one, 



222 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



"but more orderly than the other. So in the utterance 
of a speech yon should give its full expression to every 
sound, still avoiding the opposite faults of affectation 
and drawling. Beware that you do not run your words 
together ; strive that each syllable shall be sounded 
fully ; give to the letters, or rather to the conventional 
sounds of the words, their complete expression, having 
especial regard for your r's. The reason for this is, 
that your audience must follow your thoughts as well 
as your words, and if you put them to so much as a 
momentary pause to seize the words, the process of 
translating them into thoughts cannot be performed in 
time to catch the next words that come from you. For 
the same reason it is necessary that you should speak 
deliberately. The most frequent fault of orators is 
speaking too rapidly ; their ideas flow faster than the 
tongue can express them, and in the eagerness to catch 
them before they are tripped up by successors, the 
organ of speech is urged to its utmost speed, and the 
words come tumbling one over the other, to the bewilder- 
ment of the audience, who could tell you of your 
discourse only that they had heard a mass of things, 
but nothing clearly. 

For the study of articulation and deliberation in 
utterance I must remit you to the preceding hints for 
reading. The art may be best acquired, and evil habits 
that impede it best cured, by the practice of reading 
aloud, observing the precepts for good reading. 

But reading will not remedy too much rapidity when 
it is caused by crowding of thoughts. Book in hand, 
you receive the thoughts of the writer, and having to 
deal with them alone, you may easily learn to reproduce 
them at any pace you please. Hence a too slow reader 



XXXIV. DELIVERY. 



223 



may be. and is often, a too fast speaker. A fault 
having such an origin can be cured only by attacking 
the cause. You must check the stream of thoughts, if 
you can. The problem is, how to do this. Having 
experience of the defect, I have given a great deal of 
consideration to devising a cure for it. I must own 
that I have been unsuccessful. Good resolutions have 
proved of no avail. During the process of speaking, the 
mind is so engrossed by its one business of thinking, 
and clothing its thoughts in words, that rules and 
resolves are forgotten, and it goes to work in its own 
way, according to its nature. But although unsuccessful 
in checking the current of ideas, something may be done 
to control them by a pre-arranged plan of treatment. 
If you will keep well before you the order of your topics, 
your thoughts will marshal themselves according to that 
scheme, and in this process will incur less danger of 
tripping up one another. This involuntary falling into 
rank is not to be acquired by any rules or teachings, but 
is learned by long practice giving self-command, and 
encouraged by the resolve never to speak without a plan 
distinctly formed in your mind before you open your 
lips. 

Lastly, study variety of tone and of expression. There 
is nothing so dreary as monotony of voice. A bad speech 
delivered with various expression is infinitely more effec- 
tive than a good speech spoken in one unbroken key and 
unvarying tone. Give to every sentence its appropriate 
expression ; gravity to the grave, gaiety to the gay. 
Raise your voice when you desire your audience to mark 
some passage ; sometimes lower your voice, especially 
when you desire to express emotions. Your tones should 
be continually changing, like notes in music, to which 



224 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



indeed they are the equivalent in oratory — only see that 
they are apt to the subject. This incessant play of the 
voice is the latest triumph of the orator. All beginners 
want the courage to follow even their own impulses ; 
their fear of failure keeps them from turning to the 
right or left out of the path that goes straight to the 
end. But, as experience gives confidence, and the dread 
of breaking down departs, little by little, cautiously at 
first, and afterwards more boldly, you will venture upon 
variations of expression that will be equally a relief to 
yourself and your audience. This is not an accomplish- 
ment for which any rules can be suggested : it is not to 
be taught by a master or learned by rote ; it can be 
obtained only by practice ; the general cultivation of 
the taste and the intellect is the only means for its 
education, and it can be perfected only by experience, 



225 



Lettee XXXV. 

ACTION. 

Action — Action — Action ; this, according to the high 
authority of the greatest orator of whom history bears 
record, is the first, second, and third precept of 
oratory. 

To be plain with you, this is what in your college 
phrase you would term — bosh. It is just one of those 
sayings which men have taken upon trust and repeated 
from generation to generation, without looking into it to 
see how much truth is at the bottom of it. Action is 
something certainly, but it is not everything. There can 
be no effective oratory without it ; but it is not the sub- 
stance of oratory, nor even its principal ingredient. It 
is simply one of its ornaments, to be used with discretion. 
True it is, that very stupid people may take a wind-bag 
in convulsions for an orator, thinking that a man so 
physically demonstrative must be Tittering wonderful 
thoughts ; but all who can understand what is said look 
for some sense, and are not satisfied with mere sound 
and fury ; and the test of an orator is, if he can hold the 
ear and stir the heart, and not how he can make the eye 

l 3 



226 THE ABT OF SPEAKING. 

stare and the mouth, gape : a mountebank at a fair would 
win still more than he of that kind of vulgar wonder. 

But action is nevertheless a necessary adjunct — a grace 
to be sedulously cultivated ; a charm that adds immensely 
to the effectiveness of a speech. It attracts the atten- 
tion of the hearer, and even helps the flow of the 
speaker's thoughts. How this latter process is effected 
I cannot tell you, but every speaker will admit that so 
it is. The movement of the body stirs the mind ; in- 
deed, the natural impulse is for the thought within 
to express itself on the outward frame — that is, such 
thoughts as address themselves to other minds ; and 
these are the materials of all speeches. 

It seems a paradox to say that the first step to action 
is to learn to stand still, but so it is, and there is no 
lesson so difficult to learn as this — for self-command and 
confidence are essential to it. A great actor, to whom 
I am indebted for many valuable hints on this subject, 
told me that it was the last lesson learned on the stage ; 
that few, even of the most experienced in acting, knew 
how to stand still, and that we might measure an actor's 
accomplishment by observing if he stood still with 
natural ease and in a natural attitude, when he had 
nothing to do. It is precisely so with speakers. They 
cannot stand still ; manifestly they know not what to do 
with their arms and their feet ; they look as if they 
wished to be rid of them, or as if they were thinking of 
nothing but how to pose them ; they fidget them here 
and there ; shift from one awkwardness to another ; 
thrust the hands into the waistcoat, or under the coat 
tails, or in the pockets, and try with the feet all positions 
unknown to the drill-sergeant. Strange that the only 
attitude they do not assume is — no attitude at all, but 



XXXV. ACTION* 



227 



the natural grace of the human figure standing still — 
the feet in the " stand-at-ease" position of our drill, and 
the arms hanging down at the sides just as they descend 
by their own weight. " This is the whole art of stand- 
ing still," said my instructor ; and having tried it myself, 
and closely observed it* in others, I can echo his instruc- 
tions. 

When you stand still, your attitude must be of repose, 
or you will have the aspect of a cataleptic stiffened into 
a statue, not of one willingly at rest. Nor should it be 
the starched and strained posture of " attention" in the 
ranks, where every muscle betrays effort. The pose of 
standing still is the relaxation of every fibre. You must 
feel at ease, look at ease ; the body upright, but firmly 
set, the arms lying at your side in their natural fall, the 
head slightly elevated and thrown back, and the chest 
expanded. I am thus minute, because this is the " first 
position" in the art of oratory, and having attained to 
this you will readily advance from stillness to action. 
It seems easy enough when described in words, but you 
will find it somewhat difficult to attain in practice. But 
it is worth an effort to acquire. Not that you will often 
have need to adopt it upon the platform, but because it 
is the foundation of effective action. If you can stand 
still becomingly, you will be almost sure to move 
gracefully. 

Moreover, this is the pose that gives you the freest 
use of your voice. The chest cannot play freely unless 
the body is upright and the shoulders are thrown back ; 
on the play of the chest depends the power of the lungs 
alike to express and to endure. So the elevated head 
is necessary to the resonance as well as to the delicate 
shades of sound made by that marvellous instrument 



228 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



through which the infinite variations of thought find 
their appropriate expression. In action itself these 
positions must be preserved ; the change is mainly in 
the play of the arms and the turn of the head. If 
you accustom yourself from the beginning to keep an 
open chest and a free throat, you will have made a 
mighty stride towards success. And to master these 
you must master the first position in action — standing 
still. 

Begin quietly. Your action should rise with your 
emotions, and they should swell as you warm with your 
theme. If you commence with much action, you must 
either fail to appear as growing in energy at the right 
place, or you will be compelled to extravagant action, 
with imminent risk of lapsing into the ludicrous. The 
favourite parliamentary position of the arms crossed 
upon the chest is a good one for the opening of a speech, 
for it expresses confidence, and therefore creates 
confidence. But merely to stand still is not unfitted for 
the start, and it has an aspect of deference for the 
audience that bespeaks their favour. This is, however, 
a matter of choice, in which you should consult your 
own ease. From this position you may depart with the 
first sentence you desire to emphasise, and especially at 
the close of it, by slowly extending the arms and with 
the same equable motion restoring them to their first 
position. Presently, observing still the rule that action 
should be used only in aid of the voice where special ex- 
pression is sought to be given to what you say, you should 
throw your arms apart and use them with increasing fre- 
quency, but remembering that the use of both at the same 
time indicates the extremest energy, and therefore you 
should employ but one for the less emphatic sentences. 



XXXV. ACTION. 



229 



But how to use them ? That is the difficulty. I have 
endeavoured to reduce to words some definite hints for 
that purpose, but I have been unable to do so to my 
own satisfaction. I fear that this portion of the art 
cannot be taught by written instructions, but only by 
instructions conveyed through the eye. I cannot tell 
you how you ought to move, I can only offer to you a few 
hints by way of warning what to avoid in moving. 

Shun uniformity of action. Some speakers merely 
wave the hand up and down, or to and fro, in one even 
and measured sweep, as if they were beating time to 
music. Pray you avoid it. Do not saw the air, as 
Hamlet terms it. Do not stick your thumbs in your 
waistcoat, nor thrust your hands under the tail of your 
coat, nor twirl a thread, nor play with a pen. Of these 
inelegancies there are eminent examples among the fore- 
most orators of this generation. An impressive, because 
expressive, action, if used at a fit place, is a thump with 
the hand upon the table, or, in default, of one hand 
against the other, when you want to give extraordinary 
emphasis to some word or point in the sentence. There 
is a natural language of the limbs as well as of the 
voice, and if you observe that you will not err. The 
difficulty, you will say, is to remember the rule when 
your thoughts are busily engaged in constructing your 
speech, and you cannot at once think of what you shall 
say and how you shall say' it. Happily for you, this 
natural action is instinctive. It follows the feelings and 
accompanies the words. You have nothing to do but to 
give it free play, by removing all ungainly habits, all 
artificial action, whatever affectations you may have 
been taught by ignorant and pedantic masters, and 
having put yourself in the best position for the muscles 



230 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



to act, yon may leave the manner of their action to the 
impulses of nature. 

You will ask why it is, if Nature prompts the right 
action, so few orators are found to practise it. My 
answer is, that they have not trusted to Nature. Either 
they have sought to make an art of action and learn it 
by rules ; or, they do not feel what they say, but are 
speaking by rote ; or, they have fallen into bad habits 
at the beginning, before they were sufficiently confident 
to let Nature speak her own language ; or, they are 
still so wanting in self-command that, as it is with 
beginners, fear impedes the free motions that nature 
prompts. 

I might address to you an entire letter upon this 
natural language of the limbs, describing how the various 
motions naturally express themselves in attitude as in 
voice, but it would be of no practical service to you. If 
I were to tell you that, in denunciation of a wrong, the 
arms are naturally thrown into such a position, you 
would not be much the wiser. You could not learn to 
assume that posture by a preconcerted plan, and the 
impulse would not arise one whit the more rapidly, nor 
more certainly shape itself into action, because you knew 
beforehand that so it ought to be. Therefore, I con- 
clude these hints for action by repeating, that you must 
clear yourself of all acquired action, shake off all awk- 
wardness and irregularities of movement, study grace- 
fulness in the motions of the limbs, and especially of the 
arms, resolutely learn to stand still properly, and then 
trust to nature to prompt the action suited to the word 
and the thought. 



231 



Letter XXXVI. 

THE CONSTRUCTION OF A SPEECH. 

A speech is a work of art, to be constructed in accord- 
ance with certain laws of taste — aesthetically (if you 
like the word better than our old-fashioned English one) — 
having a definite design and shape, and forming a whole 
made up of distinct parts, which you, when delivering, 
can contemplate as a whole, and which may be com- 
prehended and remembered as a whole by your audience. 

In this I refer only to a speech, properly so called — a 
set oration on a subject reflected upon and matured 
beforehand ; for otherwise it is with remarks thrown 
out in the course of a debate — interpellations, as the 
French term them — matters of business, which are 
nothing more than standing-up talk ; and replies, which 
differ from either. In the hints I am about to offer to 
you for the construction of a speech, I refer only to a 
formal speech, to which I do not give the title of oration 
only because that has come to be read as a very big 
word, the use of which would be looked upon as boastful, 
and therefore I prefer to call it by the more modest 
name of a speech ; but I mean an oration. 



232 



THE AET OF SPEAKING. 



It must have a beginning, a middle, and an 
end. 

The beginning is the most difficult, at least so I have 
found it to be. You are led up to the after parts of 
your discourse, but you must begin by leading up to 
the main subject. It will not do to plunge abruptly 
into it ; there should be always an opening, designed to 
attract the attention of the audience and excite their 
interest in what you are about to say. Be not argumen- 
tative ab the beginning, or you will certainly repel the 
sympathies of a considerable majority of the assembly, 
who are in truth incapable of following the steps of an 
argument, or of understanding it when it is com- 
pleted. If the subject permits, begin lightly, almost 
playfully ; assume, both in language and manner, a great 
deal of deference for your audience, even if you do not 
feel it ; your present business is to win their favour, so 
as to secure a patient hearing, -and there is nothing so 
effective as the silent flattery that assures the good 
people before you that you court the approval of their 
judgments. Talk about the subject, but do not treat of 
it. Show what interest it has for them, and how pro- 
foundly it affects you — insomuch that you' are urged 
to speak upon it by the impulses of conviction and 
feeling ; that it fills your mind to overflow, so that you 
cannot help pouring it into their ears and striving to 
enlist their sympathies. 

Having thus cleared the way, you enter upon the 
subject itself," and your manner of treating it will vary 
with every variety of topic, so that it is impossible to 
suggest any form of treatment that could be applicable 
to all. Here, again, I can little more than attempt 
to throw together a few practical hints what to do and 



XXXVI. THE CONSTRUCTION OF A SPEECH. 233 

what to avoid, leaving the substantial structure of the 
work to your own good taste. 

You must have an argument, and yet you must not 
appear to argue. The order of your thoughts must be 
logical, but you must shun the shape of logic. Your 
aim is to convince and to persuade ; but conviction is 
not produced by close reasoning, but is the result of a 
pleasant mixture of facts, and broadly-drawn deductions 
from them, which carry the listener's mind to your end, 
without consciousness on his part of the particular steps 
by which you have done so. In your own mind you 
must have a distinct conception of the chain of reasoning 
by which you propose to come to the conclusion, but 
your art will be shown in concealing this from the 
audience. The result is accomplished by a judicious 
mingling of narrative with argument, gaiety with 
gravity, humour with poetry, familiar talk with occa- 
sional flashes of eloquence. Variety is the soul of a 
speech, and is, above all things, to be studied — the skill 
of the great orator being shown in the direction of every 
phase of his discourse, however apparently divergent, to 
the proposition he is maintaining. Eemember that 
nothing is so wearisome as monotony. We tire of too 
much eloquence, and a speech of brilliant sentences 
would be intolerable. Too many passages of the finest 
poetry pall the ear. You cannot be kept constantly 
grinning, and how glad everybody is to escape from 
solemnity is shown by the wretched jokes that suffice to 
throw a court of justice into roars of laughter. In a 
speech, there is nothing more useful than interspersion 
of anecdote. Narrate some facts. There are many 
people in all companies who can understand nothing 
else. They can see little in an argument, but they can 



334 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



appreciate a fact. It so happened to somebody some- 
where, after he had done something. That settles the 
question in such minds, and they are not a few. You 
win at least half your audience by a striking anecdote, 
utterly worthless as evidence, though it be, to a reasoning 
mind, while it amuses and relieves the strained thoughts 
of your more reflecting listeners. When occasion per- 
mits, throw in bits of eloquence, but not too long nor 
too frequent. There is nothing in the art of speaking 
more difficult to manage than this. A flowery discourse 
is offensive to good taste, but a dash of poetry may be 
permitted when you appeal to the feelings. In narra- 
tive, also, it is sometimes desirable to embellish descrip- 
tion with pictorial language, and you may clothe senti- 
ments in ornamental phrases. But these nights should 
never be long continued, and they should appear as 
accidents only, not as the substance of your discourse. 
The mention of pictorial language reminds me that a 
speech should be interspersed with pictures. You are 
aware that every human being, not an idiot, is competent 
to conceive a picture, while few are capable of compre- 
hending an abstract idea, and fewer still of following 
out a closely-linked chain of argument. You will see 
this shown in a striking manner by children, who will 
listen intently to stories that paint pictures upon their 
minds, and who receive repetitions of the same story, 
however frequent, with even more than the interest 
felt in it at the first telling, A considerable portion of 
the grown-up people are only " children of larger 
growth," and retain the childish love of pictorial narra- 
tive. You must submit to gratify this taste if you 
would please a miscellaneous audience. Tell them 
something in the way of a story, something you or some 



XXXYI. THE CONSTRUCTION OF A SPEECH. 235 

other person has seen or done, painting with your words 
upon their minds a picture of the scene you are describing. 
Do not be afraid of staleness or repetition — it is wonder- 
ful how often audiences will laugh at the same jest, and 
listen with interest to the same story. Thus, with a 
mixture of argument, narrative, poetry, eloquence, jest 
and earnestness, you will compound the middle, or sub- 
stance, of a speech. 

Having said all that you have to say, or, at least, as 
much as you ought to say, you come to the Peroration. 
which, in a set speech, should be a finale with a nourish 
of trumpets. It is permissible and safe to write this 
part of an oration, and confide it to the memory, for it 
is too difficult a composition to be entrusted wholly to 
the impulse of the moment. If a formal peroration is 
attempted, it must be excellent, or it will be worse than 
useless. It is an ambitious effort, and to fail in it is to 
expose yourself to merciless ridicule. The most effective 
speech would be marred by an ending that left your 
audience laughing at you. Therefore, think well before 
you adopt a peroration, for it is not necessary to a 
speech, though very desirable, because highly effective ; 
but having resolved upon it, spare no pains to perfect it. 
Write and re-write it until it approves itself to your 
taste, and recite it aloud to try how it comes to your 
tongue and sounds to your ears ; for you will find that 
sentences, seeming excellent when mentally read, are 
ineffective when actually expressed by the lips. 

The Peroration should not be the summing-up of your 
argument, but rather the pointing of it to its purpose — 
the moral of what you have been saying, commended to 
the regards of your audience. Your speech had been 
addressed to convincing and persuading by many 



236 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



arguments and illustrations ; the peroration should be 
the concentrated sum of all you have sought to urge, 
clad in glowing colours, appealing to the moral senti- 
ments, the human feelings, and even, where the occasion 
permits, to the passions, of your hearers. Its object is 
to excite them to a reception of your argument, by 
exalting their conceptions of the importance of your 
theme, or to move them to action in accordance with the 
purposes for which you are addressing them. Whatever 
you say should have one of these definite designs. Mere 
fine words are impertinences. 

Then, a Peroration should grow in power and bril- 
liancy as it advances, until it culminates in a climax at 
the close. Having once soared in it, you must not sink 
again to the level of plain prose, but maintain the stream 
of poetry. or passion, with a gradual swell, if you can, 
but evenly at the least, reserving your most striking 
thought and powerful language for the conclusion, as 
your last words will be likely to live longest in the 
memory. 

In this, as in all the parts of a speech, employ the 
simplest language, for not only is it usually the grandest, 
but, being intelligible to all, it best attains your purpose 
with all, and wins many supporters who would have 
been insensible to the language of scholarship. There 
is no emotion that cannot be more forcibly expressed, no 
narrative that cannot be more vividly painted, in our 
Saxon vernacular, than in the best classical dialect of 
the library. Avoid also long and involved sentences ; 
they are perplexing to a reader, bat to a listener they 
are unintelligible. The speech that is most effective 
with an audience is that spoken in short sentences, con- 
structed in the form of uttered, not in that of written, 



XXXVI. THE CONSTRUCTION OF A SPEECH. 237 

thoughts — each sentence complete in itself, and con- 
taining a single proposition. 

A formal peroration is not necessary even to a formal 
oration, although it is so great an ornament that, if you 
have time to prepare it, you should on no account omit 
to do so. But, better far to have none than an imperfect 
one. Do it thoroughly or not at all, and I repeat, do 
not trust it to the impulse of the moment. If you have 
not come prepared with it, dispense with it altogether, 
and avoid anything like a pretence of it in speeches that 
are not orations — but the utterance of the thoughts of 
the moment on a subject suddenly presented. 

For such cases you must acquire another art, much 
more difficult than you would think it to be — the Art of 
Sitting Down. 

How few speakers have mastered this ! How few 
know when to .stop, or how to stop ! How often do we 
see those who have spoken well mar the effect of all 
that has gone before by an unhappy ending. They wind 
up feebly, or, which is worse, they do not wind up at all. 
They appear to be coming to a close, and just when we 
expect them to sit down, they start off again upon some 
new path, and wander about drearily, and, indeed, repeat 
this process many times, to the sore trial of the patience" 
of the audience, and withal are further than ever from 
the end they seek. Strive to avoid such a calamity. 
Better any defect at the close, than a protracted ending. 
If you have not got up a formal climax, content yourself 
with stopping when you have said what you have to say, 
even although it may not be with the flourish you desire. 
If you do not win a burst of applause, you will give no 
offence. You will obtain credit for good sense, at least, 
if not for eloquence ; and certainly the former is the 



238 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



more useful faculty for the vast majority of purposes for 
which, the Art of Speaking is required to be exercised in 
the business of life. Even with professional orators, 
such as statesmen and lawyers, for once that a formal 
oration is demanded, a sensible speech is required twenty 
times, 



239 



Letter XXXVII. 

THE ORATORY OF THE PULPIT. 

Having described to you the general form of a speech, 
how it should be spoken, and what faults you should 
endeavour to avoid in framing and speaking it, I turn 
now to the special features of special kinds of oratory ; 
for each one has characteristics of its own which demand 
the special study of those who will be required to 
practise it, in addition to the studies of oratory as an 
art, to which I have endeavoured, in the preceding 
letters, to direct your attention. 

The principal forms of oratory, whose special charac- 
teristics I propose to describe, are the oratory of the 
Pulpit, of the Bar, of the Senate, of the Platform, and 
of the Table. Of these only three are of immediate 
interest to you ; another may, I hope, some day be re- 
quired ; the first will be a not uninteresting or uninstruc- 
tive study, if only as assisting your actual judgment of 
the merits of popular preachers. But these letters 
would have been incomplete had the oratory of the 
Pulpit found no place here. 

The Pulpit orator differs from all other orators in 



240 



THE AET OF SPEAKING. 



this, that he is nob open to answer, and therefore has it 
all his own way, and that he speaks, not merely as a 
man offering his own opinions to other men, but as one 
who bears a message from a higher authority than his 
own. 

Moreover he may assume that his congregation are in 
substantial agreement with him, or they would not be 
gathered there ; consequently he has no need to prove 
his title to them. He is before them of his own right, 
they acknowledge his mission to be their teacher, they 
must hear him out, or at least sit him out ; neither 
dissent nor disapprobation can be expressed ; the most 
transparent fallacies will pass unchallenged, the feeblest 
arguments provoke no reply. 

At the first survey of this unique position, nothing 
would seem to be more favourable for oratory. More than 
this, the subjects of which he treats are of the mightiest 
moment to all his hearers ; the highest and the humblest 
have an equal interest in the world against whose tempta- 
tions he warns, and the heaven to whose joys he invites 
them. There is not a human weakness nor virtue, not 
a passion nor a sentiment, that does not come legiti- 
mately within the sphere of his discourse ; whatever is 
nearest and dearest to us, whatever we most desire or 
most dread, all that is known and all that is unknown, 
the busy present and the great dark future, are his to 
wield at his will, for winning, for deterring, for 
attracting, or for terrifying. He can persuade, or excite, 
or awe, his hearers at his pleasure ; his theme prompts 
to poetry ; he may resort to all wonders of Nature and 
Art for illustrations, and, if he comprehends the grandeur 
of his mission, he has the stimulus of consciousness that, 
with God's blessing, the words he utters will save souls. 



XXXVII. THE OEATORY OF THE PULPIT. 241 

But these advantages notwithstanding, good pulpit 
oratory is more rare than any other. Probably fifty 
thousand sermons are preached in the United Kingdom 
every Sunday, but of these, how many fulfil the re- 
quirements of the Art of Speaking ? How many really 
fine sermons, finely delivered, has the oldest of us heard 
in the course of his life, even if he has been a regular 
church-goer ? He might almost count them on his 
fingers. Certainly, if the preachers be enumerated and 
not the sermons, they would not number ten. I can 
say, for my own part, that having sought for them I 
have been unable to find them. It is not too much to 
assert that forty-nine out of fifty were prosy, inartistic, 
unattractive to mind or ear, drawling and slumberous, 
droning out dreary platitudes in dullest language, unen- 
livened by a flash of eloquence or a spark of poetry. 
To listen to them is an effort ; and the result of the 
effort is pain — pain to the intellect, which is unre- 
warded ; pain to the taste, which is offended ; 
pain to the ear, which is wearied. Added to these 
is a certain sense of annoyance at a noble opportunity 
lost, and the involuntary comparison of what that 
discourse might and should have been with what 
it is. 

Why pulpit oratory is so feeble and its power so 
stricken is a question of great interest, well deserving a 
more extended inquiry than it has yet received ; but it 
does not come within the province of these letters, for 
which the fact suffices that the branch of oratory which 
ought to be at the summit of the art, and to exhibit 
more and greater orators than any other, in practice 
falls below the rest, and produces fewer claimants to 
the title. At present my purpose is to describe, briefly, 

M 



242 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



the special features of the Art of Oratory in the Pulpit, 
as they should be found there. 

I have hinted above that the business of the preacher 
is much more to persuade than to convince. As a rule, 
his audience are already believers of the same creed with 
himself. They are his congregation because his belief 
is presumed to be identical with theirs. He has no 
need, therefore, to plunge into arguments directed to 
show that some persons there present are wrong, and to 
convince them that he is right. It is the specialty of 
the pulpit orator's discourse that he is exempted from 
the necessity, imposed upon all other orators, of address- 
ing themselves to those who differ from them, more or 
less, and seeking to convince them by argument, with 
liability to instant attack and defeat, as a restraint 
against feebleness and fallacy. Consequently, as the 
rule, subject, of course, to rare exceptions, the business 
of pulpit oratory is persuasion. 

To convince, you address the reason ; to persuade, you 
appeal to the emotions. In the one case, you call upon 
your audience to reflect and pronounce a calm impartial 
judgment ; in the other, you desire that they should not 
think, but feel, surrendering their judgments to you. 
The preacher's title to do this is founded upon the tacit 
assumption that his audience and himself hold substan- 
tially the same creed, and that it is his vocation to 
excite in them a sense of its grandeur and importance, 
and to stir them to thought and action in accordance 
with its precepts. To these the preacher adds the power 
of awe, as bearing a message from above, and he appeals 
to the emotions of veneration and of fear. 

Such being the mission of the preacher, the first 
question is, in what manner it should be performed ; 



XXXVII. THE OEATORY OF THE PULPIT. 243 

and it is manifest that, foremost of his accomplish- 
ments should be the faculty of moving — nay, of com- 
pelling even — his congregation to hearken to him. Let 
his discourse be ever so excellent, it will be wasted on 
the air unless he can keep the attention of his audience 
awake, and their minds, as well as their ears, wide open 
to receive it. Hence the first step towards pulpit 
oratory is a good delivery. Such is the charm of this 
that, as a very little experience will satisfy you, a bad 
sermon well delivered is really more effective than a 
good sermon badly delivered. 

The rules for good delivery of a sermon are very 
nearly those already suggested for the right delivery of 
a speech. If it be read, it should be so read as to bear 
the slightest possible resemblance to reading : the eye 
should not be fixed steadily on the page, but continually 
look round upon the audience, as if each individual in 
the crowd were separately addressed. The eye, as you 
know, is always in advance of the voice, so as to render 
this diversion by no means difficult after a little practice, 
and it is facilitated much by keeping the left hand upon 
the page, with the finger pointing to the line, so that 
the returning glance may alight instantly at the place 
where the sentence is to be regained. So by looking to 
the most distant part of the church the voice is uncon- 
sciously raised to the pitch necessary for filling the 
building, its success in this being at once indicated to 
the speaker by the echo of it — its failure by the dying 
away of the sound by degrees before it reaches its 
destination. Then the tones of the voice must be changed 
continually according to the character of the theme : 
now exultant, now sad ; now commanding, now im- 
ploring ; now deep in denunciation, now rich in loving 

m 2 



244 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



kindness ; imploring now, and now stern in warning. 
Above all things, a preacher should shun monotony, 
especially those dreariest forms of it, the pnlpit drawl, 
the pulpit whine, the pulpit groan and the pulpit 
snivel. 

The preacher should not stand like a talking auto- 
maton. Action is a necessary part of all oratory, only 
it should be appropriate to the place and the theme. 
The tub, in which it is the fashion of the Christian 
world to confine their preachers, is certainly not favour- 
able to action. It is difficult to be, or to appear, 
graceful of movement in such a position ; but the orator 
is not therefore to eschew action altogether. The eyes 
aid materially in riveting attention to the voice, as you 
will discover in a moment by trying to listen to a 
speaker whom you cannot see, and we like to witness 
upon the face and in the manner of those who address 
to us earnest words some evidence that they are as 
earnest as their language. Action is the natural expres- 
sion of emotion, and the absence of it conveys the 
impression of want of earnestness in the speaker, that 
he does not feel what he is saying. If once that 
impression clouds the mind, there is an instant collapse 
of its own emotions. The action of the preacher is 
limited, of course. But he should turn continually from 
one part of his audience to another ; extend and wave 
and raise one arm or both, according to the energy 
of his words, and appropriately with their meaning ; 
occasional bending of the head, and extending of the 
body over the pulpit in entreaty, or drawing it up to its 
full height in denunciation or warning, afford varieties 
of movement which, judiciously employed, are highly 
effective. 



XXXVII, THE ORATORY OF THE PULPIT. 245 

Such are a few brief hints for the manner in which a 
pulpit discourse should be delivered. I add some, 
equally brief, as to the matter. 

The text is a custom too firmly established among us 
for the preacher to venture to dispense with it, although 
the modern sermon differs widely from the commentary 
that first introduced the practice of text-giving. But, 
if it is to be observed, now that the sermon is a dis- 
course and not an exposition, the text should be chosen 
with some regard to fitness. A striking text attracts 
the attention of the audience at the beginning, a good 
text assists his memory at the end, of the discourse ; 
and, for objects so important as these, quaintness, and 
even conceits, may be excused — though they are not to 
be cultivated. The sermon itself should, like a speech, 
have a plan ; the scheme of it should be capable of 
being sketched in a few lines, and the various parts 
should grow out of, and be proportioned to, one another, 
so as to make a harmonious whole. Unity is a great 
charm in all works of art ; and a good sermon is a work 
of art — an exercise of the taste as well as of the 
intellect. Before a line is written, the entire of the 
plan should be put upon paper, and closely observed in 
the composition of the work. But the various divisions 
should not be exhibited to the audience by numbers, as 
is the custom with some preachers ; it is unwise to alarm 
by a vista of possible tediousness, wearisome to contem- 
plate. They should not be told that the subject will be 
divided into five heads, and each head into four parts, 
and such like. Let these appear, as you proceed, to 
grow naturally and properly out of the theme, and there 
will be no danger of tediousness, nor a dread of anti- 
cipated boredom. The discourse should have a definite 



246 



THE AET OF SPEAKING. 



aim — to maintain a proposition, to exhort to some duty, 
to warn against some sin. It should not be a vague 
declamation about religious matters in general, of which 
only a dim recollection can remain in the minds of the 
congregation, but a definite purpose that might be 
distinctly comprehended and carried away to suggest 
meditation thereafter. The preacher should study 
variety by drawing largely for illustrations from nature, 
from art, from books ; he should cull the works of God 
and of man — the utterances of inspiration, and the 
inspirations of genius — to enforce his appeals. Nothing 
is foreign to the true pulpit orator : he may do anything 
but descend ; he must not play the buffoon ; he must not 
jest ; he should not even provoke a smile, for this would 
be out of keeping with the place and the business of 
the assembly. It is permitted to him to be more 
flowery and poetical than other orators, but it is possible 
for him to err in excess of this species of ornament. 
His own good taste must guide him in that, for it is 
impossible to define the boundary by any rules. The 
conclusion should be a burst of eloquence, uttered with 
energy, and growing to a climax at the end, sending the 
hearers away excited and pleased. If the discourse has 
wandered somewhat in its progress, its close should be 
in strict accordance with its commencement, and con- 
centrate in a few burning words the substance of the 
theme, bringing back the thoughts of the hearers to the 
point whence they had started. 

The language of a sermon addressed to a miscel- 
laneous audience should be distinguished for simplicity. 
The preacher should adhere as closely as possible to the 
vernacular. Far better that he should be too homely 
than too fine. Educated and uneducated can alike under- 



XXXVII. THE ORATORY OF THE PULPIT. 247 

stand his Saxon words ; the educated alone can under- 
stand his classical words. Even if he were compelled 
to choose between them, he should prefer to address 
himself to the poor, who cannot learn their duty from 
books, rather than to the educated, who can read better 
sermons than they are likely to hear. 

I have thus hastily, and too briefly, noted the promi- 
nent features of pulpit oratory, because it was a 
necessary branch of the subject of these letters, half-a- 
dozen of which would have been demanded to enable me 
to do entire justice to the theme. But, as it has no direct 
interest for you, and concerns you only as helping you 
to form a critical judgment of the preacher, I pass from 
it now to the other branches of the art of oratory, in 
all of which you will, I hope, possess a direct and 
powerful interest. 



248 



Letter XXXVIII. 

THE ORATORY OF THE SENATE. 

This part of my subject, like trie Oratory of the Pulpit, 
I will treat of briefly, although, to do it justice, several 
letters would be required. For the present, at least, it 
has but a secondary interest for you. I hope the time 
may come when it will require from you a profounder 
study. 

The Oratory of the Senate may be parcelled into four 
distinct classes. A further subdivision might be sug- 
gested, and in a more elaborate treatise would be desir- 
able, but four will suffice for our present purpose. 

The first is the Colloquial style; the second, the 
Business style ; the third, the Oration ; the fourth, the 
Reply. This classification is derived from a review of 
the various objects sought by speakers in the Senate. In 
practice, few are equally successful in all ; some excel in 
one or more, and fail in the others ; but your ambition 
should be, and your study should be directed, to do all 
well. 

It is not commonly so thought, but there is a great 
deal to learn for mastering even the least of these ac- 



XXXVIII. THE OEATOEY OF THE SENATE. 249 

complisliments. Many zealous members of Parliament, 
ambitions for fame, have set themselves to the assiduous 
study of the Art of Oratory ; but, by neglecting the ap- 
parently insignificant exercises of it, have failed to win 
the prize for which they have striven. They have toiled 
hard to learn how to compose a speech, and how to speak 
it, and have neglected the less showy art of talking on a 
matter of business in a businesslike way. Inasmuch as 
this latter is required fifty times for once that an oppor- 
tunity offers for an oration, they break down at the 
beginning of their careers, and acquire an ill repute as 
bores, which not even a good speech will afterwards suf- 
fice to remove. 

By far the greater part of a senator's work is mere 
talk, conducted amid a Babel of tongues, and listened to 
by no ears but those of the reporters. This will appear 
to be extremely easy, until you try it. Then you will 
find that to stand up and just say what you have to say 
in the fewest words, and sit down when you have said it, 
is about the most difficult performance of a speaker. 
When you have trained yourself to do that well, you will 
have advanced far towards becoming an orator. There- 
fore to this you should sedulously direct your first 
endeavours. 

The art of doing this is to do it without art. The 
common fault is an attempt to do it too well ; picking 
words and turning sentences where these are not required, 
and indeed are out of place. The best rule for your 
guidance appears to me to be this : — forget that you are 
on your legs ; suppose that you are sitting down and 
desire to make a communication to your neighbour on the 
other side of the table. As you would address him, so 
you should address " the House," in those conversational 
m 3 



250 



THE AET OF SPEAKING. 



dialogues that necessarily occupy so much of its time, 
and in which the greater portion of its actual business 
is transacted. You would not talk across the dinner- 
table in phrases or in formal sentences— that would be 
discoursing, not talking ; and what can be more disagree- 
able ? Neither should you talk so in the House when it 
is in conversation. The best practice for educating your- 
self to this is to act the part in your study at home — 
sitting Erst, then standing, until you have schooled your- 
self not to change your manner with your position. If 
you still find the propensity adhering to you in your 
place in Parliament, do not be disheartened, but perse- 
vere ; you will conquer at last, and you will know when 
you have conquered, by the wonderful ease of which you 
will be conscious as soon as you have learned to substi- 
tute sensible talking for misplaced speech-making. 

The Business Speech is the next in frequency of 
demand.. Its name describes generally its character. 
There is some work to be done, and the shortest way to 
the doing of it is the best. The British Parliament is 
essentially and substantially a place of business ; the 
show days, the party fights, the speech-makings, are ex- 
ceptional. An Oration upon a matter of business, how- 
ever eloquent, would be properly deemed an impertinence, 
and perhaps the offender would be summarily put down 
by those who have come there for work, and will not 
have their precious time wasted by abstractions. It is 
in committee that the business speech is most in requisi- 
tion and most esteemed, and the reputation of a young 
member in the House will depend upon the success with 
which he performs this part of his senatorial duties. 

The style of the Business Speech will be gathered from 
this statement of its objects. It should be a clear, 



XXXVIII. THE ORATORY OF THE SENATE. 



251 



straightforward, unadorned statement of facts and argu- 
ments. The purpose is not to excite passion or awaken 
sympathy, to command or to persuade — but to convince 
the sober judgment. Hence fine words, polished sen- 
tences, and flights of eloquence are inadmissible. The 
words should not be wasted in formal introductions or 
perorations, but go at once to the point. Sedulously 
avoid committing to paper a single sentence you purpose 
to say. Arm yourself well with the facts and figures ; 
have clearly in your mind the argument by which you 
apply them to "the question," and trust to your mother 
wit to express them in the fittest language — the fittest 
being not the best, but that which is most likely to be 
understood readily by your audience ; and such are the 
words that come to us spontaneously whenever we really 
have something to say. 

But although you should on no account write even a 
sentence of a business speech — if you are about to cite 
figures, you should come well armed with them upon 
paper. Do not trust your memory with these, for it may 
prove treacherous at any moment, and throw you into 
utter confusion. Some small skill is required in so 
arraying figures that their results may be readily intel- 
ligible to your audience. Hence the necessity for the 
exercise of much forethought in the marshalling of your 
facts. This is study- work ; it must be performed upon 
paper, with due deliberation, arranged and rearranged, 
until all is cast into the most convincing form. 

A few words here as to the use and abuse of facts and 
figures in oratory. 

The vast majority of persons love a fact and a 
sentiment, but loathe an argument ; because all can 
comprehend the former, and few can understand the 



252 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



latter. Minds that can reason a single step beyond the 
necessary requirements of existence are a small minority, 
A single fact that seems to confirm an opinion that has 
been taken upon trust weighs more with such minds 
than a logical demonstration. In like manner, a senti- 
ment is vehemently applauded, and accepted as if it were 
proof, by those who feel but cannot think. Facts and 
figures are essential ingredients in a business speech ; but 
they require careful handling, for they are addressed to 
the reasoners as well as to those who cannot reason. The 
art of effectively manipulating facts and figures in a 
speech, where the audience have not time to grasp the 
details, as when they read, consists in an elaborate and 
careful exposition of the results, for these will be readily 
apprehended and easily remembered, while the items are 
unheard or forgotten. If, for instance, your theme be 
Crime and Punishment. You show the operation of 
existing punishments upon crime by reference to the 
Judicial Statistics. To make your argument complete 
it is necessary for you to state the items that compose 
the totals, for the reporter will need these for the satis- 
faction of your readers, although your audience cannot 
possibly follow the calculations with the speed of your 
utterance. You may therefore recite them briefly and 
rapidly ; but what you desire to impress upon other 
minds is the result you deduce from them : you show 
that crime has or has not increased by a certain percent- 
age, or in a certain ratio to the whole population, or in 
a certain direction ; and such conclusions you should in- 
variably put forward in the plainest language, with em- 
phatic utterance, and even repeat them twice or thrice, 
to be assured that they are understood by all. 

The Business Speech is one degree more formal than 



XXXVIII. THE ORATORY OF THE SENATE. 253 

the conversational debate. It should be well planned, 
with attention to natural logic ; and if the argument it 
contains is in any degree abstruse — nay, in any case — it 
is a prudent practice to wind up with a repetition of the 
conclusions to which you have designed to conduct your 
hearers. Let the speech abound in illustration, but be 
sparing of ornament ; your purpose is not to please, but 
to inform. They who choose to listen do so because the 
subject interests them ; they have come for a certain 
work ; they desire to perform it as speedily as possible, 
and they resent as a waste of time whatever does not 
contribute directly to the common object. The man who 
most readily commands a hearing in the House is not he 
who makes the finest speeches, but he who speaks sensibly 
on subjects on which he is well informed. Hence it is 
that many men have a good reputation in the House, 
and no fame out of it, and are heard there with respect- 
ful silence, although wanting in every grace of oratory. 
The best training for the Business Speech is frequent 
practice of the Colloquial Speech, already described ; and 
the best field for its exercise, especially for the beginner, 
is in Committee of the whole House upon Bills, when the 
attendance is usually thin, the opportunity for rising 
frequent, and there is no criticism to be feared. 

The third division of the Oratory of the Senate is that 
of the Oration, properly so called — the set speech on a 
set subject, after formal notice, with time for prepara- 
tion, when the speaker is expected to be prepared. The 
great occasions for these grand exercises are the bringing 
forward of a motion on a subject of high importance, or 
asking for leave to bring in a Bill affecting weighty 
interests. The initiative being then with you, it is your 
business to put the House in possession of the entire of the 



254 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



case — -the facts, the arguments, the conclusions you deduce 
from them. In such an enterprise every resource of 
your art is open to you — nay, is required of you. You 
may appeal to the passions, to the sympathies, to the 
sentiments, to the reason, of your hearers ; you may 
strive to convince or to persuade, to win or to warn. You 
cannot be too eloquent, provided it be true eloquence. 
Your discourse should be a composition constructed with 
consummate art, on a definite plan, complete in all its 
parts, and perfect as a whole. The hints that have 
been submitted to you in the preceding letters will here 
be put in requisition — alike as to the structure of the 
speech, its composition, its ornaments, and its utterance. 
I need not, therefore, now repeat them. Suffice it to say, 
that it should be carefully prepared, not in actual word- 
ing, but in thought. Commit the plan to paper, 
but only the plan. Sketch in tabular array your course 
of argument, so arranged that the eye may catch in a 
moment the suggestion at any part where your memory 
may have failed you. If there are figures, or a quota- 
tation, set them out in full at their proper places. But 
write no more than this, unless it be the peroration, 
which high authorities have recommended, both by pre- 
cept and example, as a proper subject for utterance from 
the memory. I am not quite satisfied that they are 
right. I doubt whether the transition from the lan- 
guage of extempore speaking to the very different 
structure of a written composition is not so manifest as 
to jar upon the ear and offend the taste. On the other 
hand, I admit the necessity for a striking close to a good 
speech, and that its effect is much heightened by rising 
gradually to a climax of thought and language. I ac- 
knowledge the extreme difficulty of accomplishing this 



XXXVIII. THE ORATORY OF THE SENATE. 255 

by a single effort of the niind, without correction or 
choice of expressions. At all events, only great genius 
or intense emotion can extemporise such bursts of 
eloquence, and it will be safer for average men to pre- 
pare their perorations, writing them, correcting them, 
elaborating them, until they satisfy the taste of the 
author. But inasmuch as it is very difficult for any man 
to form a correct judgment of his own recent composi- 
tions, it would be desirable, if practicable, to call to your 
aid a judicious friend, and submit the work to his criti- 
cism and correction, before it is finally adopted and 
committed to the memory. 

More than this I cannot recommend you to attempt, 
for I have witnessed the most painful failures from adop- 
tion of the advice given by some writers on oratory, that 
you should compose and commit to memory certain pas- 
sages in your speech, to be introduced at points that 
afford opportunities for a flourish. The transition from 
the extempore to the written passages is manifest, and 
mars the unity of the work. The interpolated para- 
graphs rarely fit into the places into which they are 
thrust ; they are almost certain to be out of keeping 
with that which preceded or with that which follows. 
Even if the ideas should harmonise, the construction of 
the sentences and the language are sure not to do so. 
And not only the matter, but the manner, undergoes an 
awkward change. The very tone of the voice and as- 
pect of the countenance are different when you speak 
from the mind or from the memory. This is unpleas- 
antly apparent to the least critical of your audience. 
Then the balder and tamer parts of your discourse appear 
doubly bald and tame after the flowers and the fume of 
the eloquence that had gone before. Last of all, but not 



256 



THE AKT OF SPEAKING-. 



least, in its dangers, is the possibility, nay, the proba- 
bility, of the memory proving treacherous. If there is 
the slightest slip, all is gone ; the thread once lost is never 
regained. You beat about with evident effort, looking 
as bewildered as you feel ; you try back, talk nonsense, 
stumble, and break down, utterly discomfited. Of course, 
the more of these written passages you try to introduce, 
the more you multiply the chances of this most igno- 
minious form of failure. Pray you, avoid it ! 

Lastly, there is the Reply, This is the triumph of 
speech-making, if not of oratory. A great oration may 
be best made in the introduction of a subject ; but a great 
speech in a reply. This it is that tests the true genius of 
an orator. By labour or preparation it is possible for 
mediocrity to get up a formal oration that may more 
really deserve admiration as a work of art. But a reply 
cannot be got up ; in its nature it must be impromptu, 
and for its efficiency it must depend entirely upon the 
natural powers of the orator. If you observe closely the 
various speakers in Parliament, you will note how some 
who are accounted orators, and who make fine speeches, 
never commit themselves to a reply, while all the 
greatest intellects there reserve themselves for the reply. 
Here it is that the orator revels in the full enjoyment of 
all his faculties and the unrestricted exercise of his 
art. He is bound by no rules of construction, he has 
not to search for subjects, usually he is embarrassed only 
by the wealth of them, for whatever has been mooted in 
the debate is his to deal with at his pleasure. He has 
taken note of the weak points in the argument, and, 
with these before him, he treats them in their order, 
with the further consciousness that his is the last word, 
and therefore that he has the advantage of the last im- 



XXXVIII. THE ORATORY OF THE SENATE. 257 

pression upon the minds of the audience. For a task so 
all-embracing and miscellaneous, no rules can be pre- 
scribed, for it is not subject to rule, and no hints can be 
suggested, for the moment must teach its own lesson. I 
can only say that you will best educate yourself to the 
Eeply by sedulous study of the Arts of Writing, Beading 
and Speaking, and the hints I have thrown out to this 
end may help you to attain the object of your ambition. 



258 



Letter XXXIX. 

THE ORATORY OF THE BAR. 

That Bar oratory has a style of its own is evident from 
this, that, with rare exceptions, great orators of the 
Bar are not equally successful in the Legislature, and 
some are conspicuous failures. Probably this is due in 
part to the prejudice with which the speeches of Lawyers 
are received in the House of Commons. They are looked 
upon, with what justice I will not venture to affirm or 
deny, as place-hunters rather than patriots ; as advocates 
speaking from a brief, more than as men pleading the 
cause which in their honest consciences they believe to 
be the truth and the right. If they speak well, they 
obtain little credit for it, for it is thought to be their 
business to speak ; and if they speak indifferently, they 
are laughed at as men who do not know their business. 
A foregone conclusion thus taints the judgment. To 
achieve success, far greater ability and sagacity must be 
displayed by the Lawyer in the Legislature than would 
suffice to conduct a layman to fame and influence. 

But, if you would prosper at the Bar, you must not 
suffer your aspirations after parliamentary honours to 



XXXIX, THE ORATORY OF THE BAR. 259 

divert your studies for a moment from the arts by which 
the success of the Advocate is to be attained. In this, 
as in all its other departments, the Law is a jealous 
mistress, and you must serve her with all your soul and 
strength. She will not endure a divided allegiance, nor 
permit you to win other fame than that which she con- 
fers. If you resolve to make the Bar your business, as 
well as your profession, you will probably have to w^learn 
much, as certainly as you will require to learn a great 
deal. If you" have cultivated oratory at Oxford, or 
Cambridge, or at any of the spouting clubs in London, 
almost certainly you will have acquired a style of speak- 
ing altogether unfitted for the Bar, and which you must 
discard with all possible speed, without hesitation and 
without reserve. The debating-club style is the worst 
you can bring into a court of justice, and exposes its 
exhibitor to certain humiliation and failure. It is the 
most fruitful cause of breaking down at the Bar, and 
when you see it still adhering to a man after six months 
of trial, you may look upon him as hopeless. Being 
thus fatal, your first and most earnest endeavours should 
be directed to learn if any of this style cleaves to you, 
and if so, you should strive laboriously to cast it off. 

You will not better know yourself in this than in 
more important matters. Consult, therefore, a judicious 
friend, or, if you have none, seek the counsel of a pro- 
fessional teacher of elocution. Prefer a friend, if he 
can be found, for his ears are likely to be more true 
than those of masters, who are themselves apt to fall 
into mannerisms almost as disagreeable as the faults 
they are invited to mend. Give your friend an oppor- 
tunity to hear you speak at some time when you are to 
do so in earnest ; for a private recitation, made with 



260 



THE AET OF SPEAKING-. 



express purpose to avoid a defect, would not be a suffi- 
cient test. If lie should detect the slightest traces of 
the debating -club style — which I cannot describe, 
although you will recognise it in a moment — you should 
direct your efforts to its removal. Its principal features 
are grandiloquence, floweriness, phrase-making, poetising, 
word-picking and mouthing — all or some of them. To 
banish these, you must rather go to their opposites, and 
learn, by frequent practice, to speak with exceeding plain- 
ness and simplicity, clothing your thoughts in the common 
language of every-day life, and putting your sentences 
into the most un-essay-like form ; in brief, bring down 
your oratory to talking, and from that basis start afresh, 
omitting no opportunity for practice, and, when practis- 
ing, ever bearing in mind that your present object is to 
zmlearn. 

Having shifted more or less those evil habits, and 
become again a pupil, I will now give you a few hints 
as to what it will be necessary for you to learn. 

In studying the art of oratory for the Bar, you must, 
in the first place, keep clearly before you the objects of 
it. Unlike most of the other forms of oratory, it is not 
a display of yourself — with the acquisition of fame as 
the primary purpose — but it is a duty which you have 
undertaken for the benefit of another, and your single 
thought should be — as I believe with most it is — the 
advantage of your client. Whatever will best promote 
his interests you are bound to do without a thought of 
display on your own part. The cause of your client is 
advanced only by persuading the jury and convincing 
the court. Therefore your business is to adopt precisely 
that style of speaking which will best persuade jurymen 
and convince judges, and this is not a style that finds 



XXXIX. THE ORATORY OF THE BAR. 261 

favour in the debating club or in the House of 
Commons. 

Of each separately. 

Juries differ much in character, not merely in the 
various counties, in commercial or rural districts, in 
London and in the provinces, but even in the same 
locality, at the same assizes or sittings ; and therefore 
your first care should be to study the character of your 
jury. I am referring now to the common jury ; the 
special jury will be separately considered hereafter. 

If you have accustomed yourself to read the character 
in the face, you will probably make a shrewd guess of 
your men at a glance. But it must be confessed that 
the countenance sometimes deceives, and we are often 
surprised to find a sound judgment under a stolid front 
and an intelligent aspect concealing a shallow mind. 
Your eye will give you a reading that will prove toler- 
ably correct ; but you should not rest upon that alone, 
but watch closely the twelve heads, when the case is 
launched, and especially when the witnesses are under 
examination. Then you will certainly discover who are 
the intelligent, who the impotent, who the sagacious, 
who the shallow, who the facile, who the obstinate. 
Knowing them, you know how to deal with them ; you 
know who will lead the others, and therefore to whom 
you are mainly to address yourself ; you learn whom 
you must endeavour to convince, whom to persuade, 
whom to bend to your will, and you must mould your 
speech to the measure of their capacities. 

In the first place, it is essential that all of them 
should, if possible, understand what you are saying to 
them, and, as in a team, the slowest horse regulates the 
pace, so must you address yourself to the comprehension 



262 



THE AET OF SPEAKING. 



of the lowest intelligence among the twelve, and I need 
not say that with a common jury this is too often very 
low indeed. But do not mistake my meaning in this. 
When I tell you that you must speak for the ignorant, 
I do not contemplate vulgar thoughts, or lowlife phrases, 
but your own ideas put into plain language, and enforced 
by familiar illustrations. The besetting sin of Advocates 
is that of talking over the heads of the jury — addressing 
to them words that are as strange to their ears, and 
therefore as unintelligible to their minds, as any foreign 
tongue, and in throwing before them ideas comprehensible 
only to the cultivated intellect. I am perfectly conscious 
of the extreme difficulty of avoiding this error ; how 
hard it is even to recognise the fact, that thoughts and 
words, which habit has made familiar to you, are incom- 
prehensible to minds that have not enjoyed your training ; 
how still more formidable is the task of translating, as 
you speak, the fine words that come naturally to your 
lips into the homely vernacular of the classes from whom 
the common juries are taken. But this is your business, 
and to this you must train yourself at any cost of time 
and labour, for it is a condition of success at the Common 
Law Bar, that will be excused only in rare and excep- 
tional cases of extraordinary capacities securing sufficient 
business of the class that is addressed to Special Juries or 
to the Judge. 

You will soon learn to know if you are making your- 
self to be understood by your jury, if you are holding 
not their ears only, but their minds. It is difficult to 
describe the signs of this : a certain steady gaze of 
attention and fixedness of feature, and commonly a 
slight bending forward of the head, are the usual out- 
ward manifestations. But more sure than these is that 



XXXIX, THE ORATORY OF THE BAR, 263 

secret sympathy which, exists between minds with whom 
a communication is established. You feel that you are 
listened to and understood, just as you are painfully 
conscious when your audience are not heeding, though 
they be ever so silent and still. Keep your eyes upon 
the jurymen while you address them, for the eye is 
often as attractive as the tongue ; watch them well, 
and, if you mark any that do not seem to listen, 
fix your eyes upon them, and you will talk to them, 
and they will feel as if you were addressing them 
individually, and open their ears accordingly. . If 
they put on a puzzled look at any time, you may be 
sure that your argument is too subtle for them, or your 
language too fine : be warned ; simplify your argument ; 
introduce some homely illustration ; win them to a 
laugh ; repeat in other forms and phrases the sub- 
stance of what you have wasted in unintelligible sen- 
tences. Above all, if you see them growing weary, 
restless in their seats, averting their eyes, yawning, 
looking at their watches, and other symptoms of having 
heard enough, accept the warning and bring your speech 
to a close, even if you may not have said all that you 
designed to say. When your jury has been brought to 
this pass, continued attempts to attract their attention 
are not merely failures in themselves, but they mar the 
good effect of that which has gone before. Come to a 
hasty, or even to an abrupt, conclusion and resume your 
seat. The art of sitting down is quite as useful at the 
Bar as in the other arenas of the orator. 

The style of an address to a Jury is peculiar. A 
formal speech is rarely required, and when not required, 
is altogether out of place and unpleasing. It argues bad 
taste as well as an unsound judgment, and is sure to be 



264 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



visited by a shower of ridicule. The occasions that call 
for oratory at the Bar are very rare, and when they offer 
you should not neglect them ; but it is a mistake to 
suppose that, when they are turned to good account and 
a flourish has been made, success is achieved. It is not 
the orator, but the talker, who wins fame and fortune 
nowadays as an Advocate. A tendency to speechifying 
is rather a hindrance than a help in our courts, where 
there are a hundred commonplace disputes, in which it 
would be ludicrous to attempt eloquence, for one great 
case in which oratory is looked for. Imagine, if you 
can, a rhapsody in a running-down case, or a grand 
peroration in an action for goods sold. 

Eemember this, that you may win renown and fortune 
at the Bar without the capacity to make a speech ; but 
you will certainly fail, though great in oratory, if you 
do nothing more than spout. Strive to accomplish both, 
and to know the fit occasions for each ; but educate 
yourself to talk well, as your chiefest need. 

An oration at the Bar does not differ much in its 
construction from an oration elsewhere. The rules I 
have already suggested for oratory generally are equally 
applicable to this form of it, and to them the reader is 
referred for further instructions. 

Our present concern is with the ordinary business of 
an Advocate in the civil courts before a common jury. 
The examination and cross-examination of witnesses does 
not properly belong to the subject of these letters ; and 
as I have already treated them at some length in The 
Advocate, I pass them by now, and invite you at once 
to the consideration of the address to the Jury. 

Light, lively, pleasant talk is the most effective. Do 
not speak at them or to them, but with them. Lord 



XXXIX. THE ORATORY OF THE BAR. 265 

Abinger used to say that his great success as an advocate 
was due to his making himself the thirteenth juryman. 
There could not be a better illustration of the manner 
of dealing with juries. Therefore take a little trouble 
at first to put yourself on good terms with your Jury, 
not by flattering language, but by that more effective 
flattery which is shown, not said. If you meet a man 
in the street, and want to convince or to persuade him, 
how do you proceed ? You take him by the button, 
you appeal to his intelligence, you explain the matter to 
him in the most familiar terms and with the most 
homely illustrations, and you do not let him go till you 
have made him understand you. Twelve jurymen are 
only a multiplication of such cases, to be treated in the 
same manner. 

Good temper goes a great way towards conciliating a 
jury. Command yourself ; win with smiles ; frowns 
repel them. Exhibit unflinching confidence in your 
cause, for any distrust betrayed by you is instantly 
imparted to them. If the subject is dry, enliven it 
with some timely jest, and the duller the theme the 
smaller the joke that suffices to relieve its dullness. 
Throw before them as much fact and as little argument 
as possible ; you are not so likely to convince as to per- 
suade. When you think what sort of minds you are 
seeking to sway, how entirely incompetent they are to 
follow an argument, you must make the most of facts, 
treating your audience as children, who are never tired 
of listening to that which paints a picture upon their 
minds, or evokes a sentiment, but whom abstractions 
and logic send to sleep. The majority of any common 
jury are in this respect only children. You may make 
them "see it," you may make them "feel it;" but I 

N 



THE ART OF SPEAKING, 



defy you to lead them, by the cleverest and closest 
argument, to be convinced) as a cultivated thinker is 

convinced. 

Make large use of illustrations : they will be readily 
accepted as substitutes for argument, and often, I am 
sorry to say, for facts. But you must not travel for 
them beyond the circle with which your jurymen are 
familiar. You will not throw light on one obscurity by 
comparing it with another. Refer to their own know- 
ledge and experience whenever you can, and make your 
client's case their own, if the slightest chance opens to 
you. 



267 



Letter XL. 

THE ORATORY OF THE BAR (CONTINUED). 

It lias been often to me a matter for regret that lawyers 
are excepted from liability to serve on juries. I am sure 
that to all of us who aspire to be advocates there could 
be nothing more instructive than to act as a juryman 
occasionally. When I have seen the twelve heads laid 
together in debate upon the verdict, I have felt the most 
eager curiosity to learn what view each one had taken 
of the case, and by what process they arrived at 
their decision. I have thought that, if I could but be 
among them through a dozen trials, to witness what 
most moved each, to what extent some were governed 
by others, and how the unavoidable conflict of opinion 
was conducted and finally closed, I should possess a 
knowledge that would be of inestimable value to me in 
dealing with other juries whom it was my business to 
persuade. That source of knowledge has, however, by 
the policy of the law, been closed against us, and we 
can only guess what goes on in the jury-box from the 
verdicts that we hear, and slight intimations occasionally 
given by a question or a look. 

N 2 



268 



THE AET OF SPEAKING. 



But although it has never been my good fortune to 
sit upon a jury, an intelligent friend of mine, who is 
not a lawyer, was compelled lately to serve at the 
sittings of one of the courts at Westminster. I was 
curious to learn what were the results of the experience 
thus obtained. It was a common jury, but almost all 
who were upon it were men of average intelligence and 
respectability — in intellect far above the average of the 
juries in the country. 

His report of them is startling. He tells me that the 
most striking characteristic which he discovered on the 
very first day of his attendance (and it was confirmed by 
subsequent experience) was the hastiness with which 
they formed their opinion of a case. The opening for 
the plaintiff, when clearly and plausibly stated by a 
counsel whose manner pleased them, almost invariably 
so prejudiced their minds in the plaintiff's favour, that 
only the strongest case on the part of defendant sufficed 
to disturb the judgment thus prematurely formed. He 
says that the speech always weighed with them much 
more than the evidence, and that, as a rule, they ac- 
cepted the statement of the case by counsel as the very 
fact, without waiting to see if it was sustained by proof ; 
and even though the proofs failed, the connected story 
that had been first conveyed to their minds was rarely 
permitted to be disturbed by contradictions or failure in 
evidence ; — as if they had not the power of comparison, 
or were reluctant that their clear conceptions of the 
case should be disturbed by difficulties which they wanted 
the wit to solve. 

My own impression had been that juries were very 
little led by the speeches of Counsel, but very much by 
the summing-up of the Judge. I was surprised to learn 



XL. THE OEATORY OF THE BAE. 



209 



that, according to my friend's experience, it is otherwise. 
His juries, he said, appeared to be more led by the 
Counsel than by the Judge. The weariness of a day in 
the jury-box was relieved by the speeches. They were 
heard because they were amusing, when, perhaps, a great 
deal of the evidence had scarcely entered at the ear, and 
had never reached the mind. Many of his fellows paid 
no attention whatever to the evidence, as if they wanted 
the wit to put it together and extract the truth from it, 
and they seemed to rely upon the speeches for all their 
information, unconscious that they were distortions of 
some points of the case, and suppressions of others. 
The Judge's summing-up carried very little weight 
indeed with them. In almost every case their minds 
had been made up before it had reached this last 
stage ; and unless the Judge put to them some question 
of law, they paid little heed to his impartial representa- 
tion of the facts as proved. 

Then, he says, the prejudices were enormous, and the 
bias they occasioned was frightful. The justice of a 
case was the very last consideration ; if any other existed, 
the preference was given to it. If one of the parties 
had a friend or a friend's friend in the box, the influ- 
ence was perceptible at once. If the subject-matter was 
one in which even a few of the jurymen were concerned, 
as similarity of trade, or consciousness of being open to 
the same complaints, the issue was certain. The 
majority being tradesmen, it was useless to dispute a 
tradesman's bill, or the amount of his charges. A 
Company had no chance with them, whatever the merits 
of their defence. If it was objected, by the more intel- 
ligent and fair-minded, that the right was with the 
Company, it was always answered that they could afford 



270 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



to pay, while a verdict against the poor plaintiff would 
ruin him. When a difference arose about the verdict, 
he found that among the twelve were always some whose 
minds were not to be moved by any argument or remon- 
strance : such was their opinion, and they would not 
listen to the views of their colleagues ; and frequently, 
though a minority, they succeeded, by simple persistency, 
in bringing the more yielding round to their own side, 
and thus carrying the verdict. 

As a rule, the majority of the jury were stupid men, 
utterly incompetent to form a judgment upon the ques- 
tions submitted to them, and who were led by the first 
statement of the case for the plaintiff ; or, if that was 
beyond their comprehension, by the leaning of the 
judge ; or, if that was too difficult for their understand- 
ings, they simply acquiesced in whatever the more intelli- 
gent among them dictated, unless it ran counter to a 
prejudice or a partiality, for these always carried the day 
against counsel, judge, justice, reason, and their fellows. 

When such is the experience of London juries, which 
are certainly far above the average of intelligence, it 
may be well imagined what sort of justice is dispensed 
at the assizes, where the average of intelligence is im- 
mensely lower, and you will now cease to wonder why 
the suitors in the County Courts, where a jury is optional 
and not compulsory, shun it so eagerly that it is 
demanded only in one case in nine hundred, and then 
by a suitor who is conscious that his case is a bad 
one, and whose only chance is the mjustice of a jury. 
It is there observed, that whenever a man has a good 
case, he prefers that it should be tried by the Judge 
alone. 

The general result of my friend's experience was thus 



XL. THE OEATOEY OF THE BAR. 



271 



stated to me : — " From what I have seen of juries, I 
should be sorry to commit to them any matter in which 
I was interested, and in which I was satisfied that I had 
right on my side. Knowing what I now know, I would 
make large sacrifices, and submit to much extortion, 
rather than trust myself to that which I had been accus- 
tomed to look upon as ' the palladium of British justice 5 
— until I had tried it." 

The general unfitness of the jury system for the trial of 
civil suits will probably not be unknown to you, for you 
could not have sat as a disinterested spectator in a Nisi 
Prius court for a week without learning that lesson. But 
the directions which that unfitness takes will doubtless 
be as new to you as they certainly were to me. I was 
not prepared for the extraordinary value of the opening 
statement of the plaintiff's case, nor for the compara- 
tively small regard paid to the summing-up of the 
Judge. Somehow I had assumed, without reflection, 
that the Judge's influence would be decisive, not merely 
on account of his position, but because his is the last 
word addressed to the Jury. Knowing now what is the 
fact, I can see reasons for it that had never occurred to me. 
The mind unaccustomed to reflect, to compare and to 
judge, is moved only by the facts presented to it ; the 
story that is first told to it is first written there ; when a 
conflicting story is afterwards told, it is rejected, because 
the mind wants the capacity to go through the process 
of comparing, and judging, and extracting the truth from 
the opposing statements, and therefore it gladly takes 
refuge in adherence to the narrative first addressed to 
it, and thus escapes the bewilderment caused by having 
the ears opened to both sides. 

But whether this solution be right or wrong, the fact 



272 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



remains, and the lesson to be learned from it is, that the 
opening speech is of far greater moment than Advocates 
have deemed it to be ; and that you should study this 
portion of your practice with more care than is commonly 
given to it. Your aim should be to state your case so 
clearly that, as presented by you, it shall carry convic- 
tion with it to those minds — and they are usually the 
majority — in the jury-box which, being unable to enter- 
tain two ideas at once, and incompetent to compare or 
to reason, are satisfied to be thus easily filled, and refuse 
to be puzzled by contradictions too subtle for their com- 
prehensions, that are afterwards presented to them. 

A Special Jury is, of course, less subject to these dis- 
turbing influences. But precisely in proportion to its 
intelligence does the probability of differences increase. 
Twelve men who are competent to form an independent 
judgment, and who desire to discharge their duty faith- 
fully, according to the dictates of their consciences, 
are not likely to take the same views of questions upon 
which the most astute lawyers have found such differences 
that they have counselled the parties to contest them in 
a court of law. To require the unanimity of twelve 
sensible men upon doubtful questions is so absurd, 
because so impossible, that one is amazed such an at- 
tempt should ever have been made, and ashamed that it 
has not been abandoned long ago. Nor could it have 
been persisted in for twenty years, but for the necessary 
addition of a detestable tyranny to an irrational folly. 
So long as the law consistently sought to compel an 
apparent unanimity, by the torture of imprisonment in 
cold and hunger, the unreflecting public presumed that 
the machine they had been taught to venerate worked 
as well as sentimentalists asserted. But no sooner had 



XL. THE ORATORY OF THE BAR. 



273 



unanimity ceased to be compelled by torture than the 
truth appeared. Juries, in rapidly increasing numbers, 
were discharged without a verdict, by reason of hopeless 
disagreements. 

Therefore, in dealing with a Special Jury, you have 
two aims : first, to win the verdict, if you can ; and 
failing that, to produce such a difference of opinion as 
may lead to their discharge without a verdict. In ad- 
dressing a Special Jury, you should assume a tone and 
manner and form of speech different from those with 
which you talk to a Common Jury, You should raise 
yourself to them : you may venture upon argument ; you 
may use choicer language, without fear of speaking 
" over their heads ;" you may appeal to many motives 
that would be unfelt by a Common Jury. But a Special 
Jury is not without prejudices of its own — class preju- 
dices which your own instincts ought to tell you to avoid, 
or to enlist on your side, as the need may be. It will 
be unnecessary to resort to the repetitions that are es- 
sential where it is your task to beat ideas into minds, 
slow, because unaccustomed to thought ; the same arts 
are not required to fix their attention. 

The style best adapted for a Special Jury is indicated 
by your office. You are a gentleman, talking to gen- 
tlemen who are your equals in position, and therefore 
it should be free without being familiar, and deferential 
without humility. You have the advantage in this, 
that you have something to tell them which you know, 
and it is your business to impart your knowledge to 
them ; but, also, they are to be your judges, and there- 
fore you treat them as men whose goodwill you are 
desirous to conciliate. 

And, with all Juries, whether special or common, 
n 3 



274 



THE ART OF SPEAKING, 



remember the precept I have already urged upon you ; 
do not weary them by saying too much ; but, even if 
you have more to say, on the instant you perceive the 
first unmistakeable symptoms of weariness in your 
audience, bring your speech to a close, and sit down ; 
for, from that moment, you are not merely wasting the 
best argument and the most artistic eloquence — you are 
undoing whatever advantage you may have gained 
before, and every sentence is a step backwards from 
victory. 



Letter XLL 



THE ORATORY OF THE BAR (CONCLUDED). 



When you address the Court, you should adopt a style, 
a manner and a tone different from those with which 
you address a Jury, whether special or common. When 
speaking to a Jury, you address men not learned in the 
law, for the most part not well accustomed to the mental 
work of rapidly following a compact argument. Alike 
with a Special and a Common Jury, it is necessary to 
elaborate your argument, that they may keep pace with 
it, and to repeat it, or the more important part of it. 
even twice or thrice, for assurance that the slowest mind 
among the twelve shall have taken hold of it. But 
when you address the Court you appeal to intelligence 
greater than your own, to a mind or minds practised in 
argument, trained to its pursuit, comprehending in- 
stantly the meaning of every word you use, and the 
more technical your talk the more intelligible it is to the 
listeners. Therefore you need none of the arts required 
to win the ears of a Jury. You should condense your 
thoughts and language, devoting your entire atten- 
tion to the logical array of your argument, and the 



276 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



precision with, which you present it. The graces of 
oratory, such as voice and manner can impart, are never 
useless, nor to be despised in any kind of speaking, and 
they are not to be disregarded even in addressing the 
Court ; but they are by no means necessary to a success- 
ful effort. The attention of the Judge is directed more 
to your argument than to you — to your matter rather 
than to your manner ; and, provided that the argument 
you have constructed be sound and sensible, it will be 
heard and accepted, although conveyed in broken sentences 
and inelegant language. Hesitating speech to a Jury is 
worse than fluent feebleness, because it is mistaken for 
incapacity ; but, by the Court, fluency and hesitation 
are alike disregarded, and the speaker is measured more 
by his mind than by his lips. Do not, therefore, lose 
courage if you lack expression for your logic ; provided 
only that you have in your own mind the clear construc- 
tion of an argument, you may safely trust to your 
-audience to seize it, whatever the difficulty with which 
vou bring it forth. 

But then it is difficult to discover if you have in 
your mind a perfectly reasoned argument. In fact, the 
mind is very apt, unconsciously to itself, to adopt a 
summary process of reasoning, and to arrive at a conclusion 
by jumps, instead of by steps. When, in a merely con- 
templative argument, we arrive at a difficulty, the mind 
is liable to pass on one side of it, or to leap over it, instead 
of threading its way through it, and often the fault is not 
found until the thoughts take shape in words. The 
surest way to avoid this not uncommon discomfiture is 
to set down your argument upon paper — (not the very 
words to be used, but only an outline of it) — in the order 
in which you design to place it before the Court. This 



XLI. THE ORATORY OF THE BAR. 



277 



skeleton of the discourse will serve the double purpose 
of enabling you to detect any defects or fallacies not 
seen when it existed only in contemplation, and of keep- 
ing you strictly to the point when you are presenting it 
to the Court. In this summary be careful to separate 
the several parts of the argument, so that they may be 
readily caught by the eye, for when you are hurried and 
flurried by action, a written page is merely a confused 
mass to your glance, unless the sentences are marked by 
very obvious divisions. Although you would not habi- 
tually resort to the preacher's practice of announcing 
the divisions of the discourse to the audience, with the 
formidable figures that advise them of the task that is 
before them, it is necessary that you should so state 
the divisions on your note, for your own guidance. 
These divisions should be written from the outer margin, 
and the subdivisions should be written within a second 
margin, and the cases you propose to cite by way of 
illustration should be noted within a third margin. The 
effect of this arrangement is, that at any moment a 
glance will inform you what you have said, what more 
you have to say, and in what order you should say it. 

In putting your argument, your manner should be 
deferential and your language suggestive. Nothing but 
consummate ability and unquestioned profundity of 
legal knowledge excuses a dogmatic style of address. It 
has been endured, and even commanded respect, by the 
Bench ; but it was accompanied by personal dislike, and 
no junior could adopt it with impunity. Diffidence, 
even if it take the form of confusion of speech, is sure 
to receive kindly encouragement from the Judges, and 
you could not desire a more generous audience. 

Do not, however, think that I design to assert that 



278 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



manner is unimportant in addressing a Judge. Every- 
where, and always, it is of moment. A Judge will hear 
you, and try to understand you, however badly you may 
express yourself ; but he will listen more readily, and 
your argument will be more effective, because more cer- 
tainly understood, if it be couched in good language and 
uttered with some of the graces of an orator. Even 
though you may determine never to address a Jury, you 
should not the less fit yourself to speak in a pleasing 
strain to the Judges, whether in the Equity Courts or 
elsewhere. 

So, when you address Magistrates at Quarter Sessions, 
carefully avoid the too frequent fault of talking to them 
as to a Jury. True, that they are the judges, both of the 
fact and of the law, and to that extent perform the office 
of jurymen ; but then they are a very special jury, and 
are not swayed by the clap-trap and fallacies that are 
commonly used by advocates to influence juries. On 
this point I speak from some experience, and I can tell 
you that many a time I have seen the utmost impa- 
tience upon the Bench of eloquent speeches addressed to 
the Justices, that would have secured a verdict with a 
Jury. Educated men, sitting as judges, even though 
they may not be lawyers, desire facts and arguments, 
and look upon anything more than these, and especially 
upon complimentary language, sentimentalities and fine 
phrases, as rather an insult to their understandings. If 
these last have any effect at all, it is only to weary or to 
repel. 

It is often asked, how far jesting is permissible at the 
Bar. It is not in good taste, perhaps, but I must admit 
that it is very effective. When the most grave work is 
being done, men feel the strongest tendency to laugh. It 



XLI, THE ORATORY OF THE BAR, 279 

is wonderful what slight and sorry jests will provoke 
shouts of laughter in a court of justice. I will not now 
consider the cause of this, though the philosophy of 
humour accounts for it. The fact suffices, that when 
surrounded by solemnity we are most easily tickled to 
laughter. The Advocate who can summon smiles to the 
lips of his audience will command their ears more cer- 
tainly than he who can only call tears into their eyes, 
and both will achieve an easy triumph over the speaker 
who can do neither, let him be ever so accomplished in 
other respects. If, therefore, jesting secures the object 
of the orator, which is in the first place to procure an 
attentive hearing, a moderate use of it is permissible. 
But the danger of the practice lies in the difficulty of 
observing moderation. The habit grows with indulgence ; 
a successful jest to-day will provoke two to-morrow, and 
when the joke comes to the lips, it is almost impossible 
to suppress the utterance of it. The conclusion is, that 
you may jest, with due discretion both as to quality and 
quantity ; but. conscious of the tendency of the prac- 
tice to degenerate, keep a watch over yourself, to restrain 
the impulse when it comes out of place. 

I have said that, in the vast majority of cases, you 
must not speechify to your juries, but only talk to them, 
especially at Nisi Prius. Eloquence would be worse than 
useless over a disputed account or a questionable con- 
tract — it would be positively ridiculous. The more 
simple, straightforward and business-like your speech, 
the more influence it will carry. It should be plain to 
homeliness in its language, and entirely unoratorical in 
manner. You are to discuss with the twelve men before 
you a matter of business — nothing more ; and you 
address them precisely as you would were you to stop 



280 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



any one of them in the street and hold him by the 
button while you talked over with him "that little 
affair." I can give you no better illustration of my 
meaning. 

Sometimes, though rarely, the occasion will arise 
when it will be your duty to appeal to the feelings of 
your Jury. Then do it thoroughly. Throw your whole 
heart into the work. Do not halt half-way ; do not 
fear that you will go too far ; I never yet saw a speaker 
fail from excess of emotion, but I have seen many fail 
from lack of it. If it becomes your business to appeal 
to the feelings at all, there is scarcely a limit to the 
sweep of the chords ; all may be pressed into your ser- 
vice to produce the one tone it is your purpose to evoke. 
But remember — and I repeat the rule yet once again, 
for it is the golden one that lies at the foundation of the 
art of oratory — effectually to kindle the emotions of 
others you must yourself be moved ; to make them feel 
you must feel ; a mere acted part will not answer. Sym- 
pathy is the secret string by which the emotions are 
awakened, and there is no sympathy with a sham, how- 
ever well disguised and cleverly acted. 



281 



Letter XLIL 

THE ORATORY OF THE PLATFORM. 

I class under this general title all the various speakings 
that are addressed to the public at large, on matters of 
public concern, and as distinguished from those ad- 
dressed to selected persons to whom you speak as a citizen, 
and not in a professional capacity. The distinction, which 
is of some importance, will be recognised at once by the 
instance of a Member of Parliament. When he ad- 
dresses his constituents, seeking for election, his oratory is 
that of the platform. When, being elected, he addresses 
the House of Commons, he speaks in his professional 
character as an M.P., and the strain of his oratory will 
be that which I have endeavoured to describe in the 
letter that treats of the Oratory of the Senate. 

The Oratory of the Platform has some characteristics 
common to all times, places and assemblies, and which 
are essential to the successful practice of it. But, in 
addition to these universal features, certain special 
qualities are required for various kinds of platform 
speaking, according to the various natures of the occa- 
sion, the subject, and the audience. I will first endeavour 



282 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



to give you a brief sketch of the general character- 
istics which you should study to comprehend, and then 
I will suggest what has appeared to me to be the special 
characteristics of some of the most important kinds of 
platform oratory. 

A public meeting is moved by two great levers, one 
of which is supplied by the speaker, the other by the 
audience. You stir the people by your voice and words, 
but enthusiasm is supplied by themselves, caught by 
one from another, and reflected again and again from 
mind to mind. It would be very difficult, if not im- 
possible, for the most accomplished orator, talking to a 
single man, or even to half-a-dozen men, to stir their 
hearts to tumult or inspire a fit of uncontrollable passion. 
There is wanting the silent sympathy by which mind 
communicates with mind, as if by the subtle influence 
of some undiscovered medium by whose agency the im- 
pressions of one mind are inaudibly and invisibly im- 
pressed upon all other minds within its sphere. The 
phenomena of panics and of popular frenzies and de- 
lusions place beyond question the fact of the existence 
of such a sympathy, and the orator must avail himself 
of it upon the platform, if he would put forth the full 
power of his art. 

True, this sympathy is never kindled by argument 
alone. The most perfect logician the world has ever 
seen would fail to awaken the feelings of his audience, 
even while commanding their loftiest admiration and 
securing their heartiest applause, for the skill with 
which his reason has addressed itself to their intelli- 
gence. The better minds among the audience may be 
held in willing thraldom by a clear and convincing 
argument ; and, if that alone be the object of the orator, 



XLII. THE ORATORY OF THE PLATFORM. 283 

he may be proud of his success ; but the minds so to be 
won are few among the many — the multitude must be 
moved by more stimulating appeals : argument fails 
because ordinary minds cannot understand it ; the 
feelings alone are common to all humanity, and through 
the feelings alone, therefore, can mixed assemblies be 
commanded. 

To secure the sympathies of an audience, it is in the 
first place necessary that you should be at one with 
them. The process is not wholly on your part. The 
most eloquent speaker cannot move an assembly entirely 
at his own pleasure — there must be some predisposition 
on the part of the listeners to sympathise with him : 
they must meet him, as it were, half-way. Consequently 
he is compelled to consult their prejudices. Let him 
run counter to these, and his influence is gone. It 
has been said, indeed, of speakers, as of writers, who 
court popularity, that they can achieve it only by ex- 
pressing in more apt words than the listener can 
employ the emotions already lurking in the minds of 
those whom they address ; that, in fact, the orator does 
but fire the train that has been previously laid. A 
brief experience will satisfy you how true is this. The 
lesson to be learned from it is, that to succeed upon the 
platform, you should, as a rule, shun argument in its 
own shape, though sometimes you may venture it, if 
cleverly disguised. But, inasmuch as a speech cannot 
be all declamation, and you must appear to aim at con- 
vincing even when you are only persuading, there is a 
resource always readily accepted as a substitute for 
argument — narrative, simile, and type. If, for instance, 
you wish that a certain proposition should be accepted 
as truth ; should you proceed to prove it by an argument, 



284 



THE AET OF SPEAKING. 



you would send half your audience to sleep, or throw 
them into a state of uneasy bewilderment. But tell them 
an anecdote that carries with it the desired conclusion, 
or typify the teaching, or introduce a striking simile, 
and eyes and mouths will open, and the comparison 
or the incident will be accepted with unquestioning 
readiness, however illogical the process, and however 
unsatisfactory the reasoning. 

It is a great art, in platform oratory, to have a nice 
and rapid perception of the temper of your audience, 
and coolness and courage to retreat when you find your- 
self treading on dangerous ground. A keen eye will 
tell you in a moment if you are going too far ; nay, by 
a kind of instinct, you will feel the shadow that is 
passing over the minds of the assembly, and if you are 
wise, you will withdraw as gracefully as you can. I am 
unable to describe the aspect that indicates this incipient 
repulsion ; but you are conscious of a sudden shadow 
upon the upturned faces, and a chill that comes over 
yourself and freezes your energies. The best antidote to. 
this, and the surest cover for your retreat, is a joke, if 
you can perpetrate one at such a moment ; a laugh is a 
certain restorative to good humour, and the folly will be 
forgotten in the fun. 

Your manner upon the platform should be deferential. 
A mixed audience is far more self-important and tetchy 
than a select party of the educated and intelligent. The 
more nearly an assembly resembles a mob, the more 
exacting it is of professions of respect. All the famous 
mob orators whom I have heard appeared to me to owe 
much of their power to the extreme deference they 
exhibited towards the people before them. King Mob 
feels an affront — and resents it, too — as readily as any 



XLII. THE ORATORY OF THE PLxlTFORM. 285 

other potentate. But you may take it as a maxim 
that an audience, whatever its composition, is more 
easily won than commanded. 

Another quality essential to success upon the platform 
is good humour, and good temper must be combined 
with it. You know the difference between them. Good 
humour is the foundation of geniality ; it is the habitual 
condition of a mind that looks on the sunny side of 
things, a kindly disposition, a cheerful temperament, an 
inclination to be rather blind to faults, and very dis- 
cerning of virtues. Good humour is near of kin to good 
nature, though not identical with it. Its presence is 
always written upon the countenance, and bespeaks 
favour for the Orator before a word passes his lips. 
Good temper is not exhibited until the occasion calls for 
it, and then it is a quality of the highest value. In all 
mixed assemblies of a public character, and especially in 
political gatherings, opposition is tolerably certain to 
appear in some shape, often in forms calculated, and 
possibly designed, to produce vexation and anger. 
Nothing so baffles your opponents and wins for you the 
sympathy and support of the friendly and indifferent, 
as imperturbable good temper. Meet abuse and gibes 
with a smiling face ; answer them with a joke, and you 
will turn the laugh against your assailants. Under any 
imaginable provocation, keep your temper ; it will secure 
you the advantage everywhere. Lose your temper, and 
you are yourself lost ; you give the victory to your 
opponents. 

Another needful quality of Platform Oratory is 
courage — moral and physical. As you should never 
betray anger, so you should never exhibit fear. In the 
fiercest conflicts of rival parties you should maintain 



286 



THE AST OF SPEAKING. 



unflinching firmness. You must learn to face hisses, 
hootings, groanings, and even more alarming expressions 
of hostility, with unblenched cheek, with a bold front, 
with unquivering voice, and with that aspect of cool 
calm resolve which commands the respect of the strong 
and cows the weak. 

The language of the platform should be at once simple 
and forcible, pictorial but unornamented. Choose the 
most familiar words, and prefer those that most power- 
fully express your meaning. You must not be too 
fearful of the accusation of coarseness, which is always 
brought by feeble speakers against their more successful 
rivals ; if your ideas are not coarse, you may be content 
to incur the charge of coarseness in your words, provided 
they convey your meaning accurately, are clearly com- 
prehended by your audience, and write upon their minds 
the impression it is your desire to make there. The 
object of oratory is not to display yourself, but to per- 
suade others, and that is the right manner of doing it 
which does it most effectively. He is the best workman 
who can adapt his tools to the materials he is moulding ; 
and this also is not to be forgotten, that while refined 
phrases are understood only by the educated few, com- 
mon words are understood by all. By the former you 
win the ears only of a portion of your audience ; by the 
latter you command the attention, and impart your 
thoughts to the minds, of the whole assembly. 



287 



Letter XLIIL 
the oratory of the platform (continued). 

The Oratory of the Platform comprises many classes of 
oratory, having certain features in common, but also 
possessing other characteristic traits peculiar to them- 
selves. In my last letter I endeavoured to describe the 
points on which they agreed ; my present purpose is to 
trace the points in which they differ. I have treated of 
platform oratory in general, and the most convenient 
course will be now to consider each of its principal 
phases separately. 

The first of these is the ordinary "public meeting," 
held for any public purpose, religious, charitable, paro- 
chial, or political. With a few very slight adapta- 
tions, the hints that apply to one of them will 
apply to all, excepting, perhaps, religious and charitable 
meetings, which require a special train of thought 
conveyed in a conventional diction. Another marked 
distinction is to be observed upon platforms, when 
ladies are expected to be an important portion of the 
audience. These are subdivisions only of the class, 
and therefore I propose to take the various kinds of 



288 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



meetings in the order of complexity; beginning with 
those not usually honoured by the presence of bonnets. 

The Parish Meeting will include all the public meet- 
ings of the same nature — free assemblies open to all 
comers, for the expression of opinion upon the subject 
it is summoned to consider. Local business is the most 
frequent of these, as vestries, municipalities and such 
like. Holden for the transaction of business, genera- 
lities, platitudes and declamatory eloquence, are out 
of place. You must address them in a business-like 
fashion, merely talking upon your legs, strictly limiting 
your talk to the matter in hand, and saying what you 
have to say in the fewest words. You will not thus 
obtain the fame of an orator, but you will win the more 
useful reputation among your neighbours of being a 
sensible man, whose speech is worth listening to, and 
a man of business, whose advice is worth taking. 
Eschew the oratorical in matter and manner ; study 
simplicity in language and in style ; put your arguments 
very plainly, and above all, come well prepared with 
your facts and figures. These, you will say, are some- 
what difficult conditions. They are so, and accordingly 
they are not frequently fulfilled. They, who have never 
tried it, think that anybody who can open his lips 
upstanding could make a speech good enough for a 
parish meeting ; but they will find it to be otherwise in 
practice, and as the personal advantages of capacity in 
this class of speaking are very great to all, but especially 
to a professional man seeking advancement in the world, 
it will well repay some study on your part. 

The difficulty is precisely that which attaches to all 
endeavours to be natural. It is much more difficult to 
be plain than to be ornate, to be simple than to be 



XLIII. THE ORATORY OF THE PLATFORM. 289 

artificial, to be what you are than what you are not. 
Savagery delights in tinsel ; it is the last triumph of 
civilisation to bring us back to nature. 

Political meetings, and quasi political meetings, re- 
quire a different treatment ; but, to avoid repetition, I 
will reserve them for consideration with the subjects to 
which they are mainly allied, and pass to the assem- 
blies of which ladies usually form the most considerable 
part. 

Eeligious, charitable, and social meetings have a 
platform oratory of their own, brought probably to 
their present fashion by the fact that the majority of 
the hearers are of the sex whom the speaker is most 
desirous to please, and to whose tastes and capacities he 
more or less consciously moulds his discourse. 

There is a speciality in the Religious Meetings of 
which it is not my design to treat ; but of whose 
existence you must be informed, or you will come to 
grief should you venture an address to one of them. 

Their language is singularly conventional. They have 
a phraseology of their own that is almost unintelligible 
to the uninitiated. It is the very opposite of simplicity. 
A considerable portion of their vocabulary differs from 
the language of common life. There are two words, 
and two only, that express it ; but I am reluctant to 
use them, because they have come to be employed in an 
offensive sense, and I do not by any means design or 
desire to imply ridicule or reproach. Suffice it to say, 
that in the religious meeting this phraseology performs 
the same office as slang in the sporting world and patter 
among the gipsies ; it has come to convey more readily 
and more accurately to the initiated the ideas which the 
speaker seeks to convey, than does the language of daily 

o 



290 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



life. It is almost a condition of success in those gather- 
ings that the platform should resound with these con- 
ventional phrases. 

Another characteristic of these meetings is a certain 
grave humour, which has been growing into fashion for 
some time past, and now reigns supreme. Gravity by 
no means distinguishes the orators at religious meetings ; 
on the contrary, a grave man, who never said a funny 
thing to make his audience laugh, would be voted a 
bore ; and in this you will see another striking illustra- 
tion of a remark I have had occasion to make more than 
once — that the gravest moments, when the most serious 
subjects are in progress, are precisely those at which we 
are the most easily moved to laughter ; the philosophical 
reason for which is, that humour, which is the provoca- 
tive of laughter, is a keen sense of the contrast between 
two very dissimilar ideas unexpectedly presented to the 
mind. 

With these additions, the Oratory of the Platform at 
mixed meetings requires the same qualifications, and is 
to be cultivated in the same manner, as for most other 
meetings composed of both sexes, and in treating of their 
characteristics, I shall be compelled somewhat to sacrifice 
gallantry to truth. 

If I were to advise you to address your discourse to 
the men, and not to the women, who are seated before 
your platform, I am sure you would not adopt my advice, 
and therefore I will assume the actual instead of the 
ideal state of a platform orator, and direct my hints to 
helping you in the situation in which you will find 
yourself in practice. 

You may now declaim to your heart's content. The 
less of argument the better. You must hope not to 



XLIII. THE ORATORY OF THE PLATFORM. 291 

convince, but to persuade ; for women — and men with 
women-like minds — always take feeling for conviction 
and faith for belief. Your appeal must be to the 
emotions. Argument should not be attempted, or it 
should be so presented as to be utterly illogical in 
substance and shape. You may indulge with perfect 
safety in the most transparent fallacies, especially if 
they fall in with the prejudices of your audience. 
Introduce as many anecdotes as possible, for the purpose 
of illustrating your assertions ; there is nothing that so 
tells with a mixed audience, especially if you point the 
moral, that this one case proves the whole. If, for 
instance, it is your purpose to abuse a whole class of 
persons, tell a story of something which you once saw 
done by one member of the class, and draw the inference 
that therefore all are hateful together, or otherwise, as 
the case may be. This is the certain means of carrying 
with you the minds of the unreasoning part of your 
audience, and these are sure to be the vast majority of 
them. The form of your speech cannot be too poetical : 
scatter flowers without stint — they are sure to be taken 
as the nights of a lofty eloquence. The substance of 
what you say is not of so much importance as the form 
of it. Nonsense, that flows in a full swell from the lips, 
in rounded periods and with fine phrases that roll into 
the ears and fill them, is sure to be accepted with 
pleasure, and to elicit a chorus of applause. An occa- 
sional laugh is effective ; but far more so is an occasional 
touch of the pathetic, especially if the sentiment is 
uttered in the tones of pathos. Freight your froth with 
a little sentiment by way of ballast ; it needs not to be 
new ; on the contrary, the more nearly it approaches a 
truism, the more readily will it be understood. 

o 2 



292 



THE AET OF SPEAKING, 



There is some art in mingling these ingredients so as 
not to offend by excess of quantity, always more dan- 
gerous than defect in quality, On the slightest intima- 
tion that your audience are growing weary of one strain, 
start them upon another, and, if possible, an opposite 
one. Call them from long-continued gravity by a timely 
jest, and recall them from laughter to seriousness by 
plunging into your soberest themes. The effect of 
contrast in heightening both of the opposite emotions, 
and thus Mndling the flagging attention, is often won- 
derful. 

Perhaps you will say that these are unworthy arts. 
They may be so ; but they are not the less necessary for 
their purpose. It is useless to make a speech, unless 
you can thereby influence either the opinions, the 
feelings, or the actions, of your hearers ; if you do 
not choose to adopt the means by which this object 
can be effected, you have no light to complain of ill 
success. Argument, however able, is wasted upon those 
who cannot comprehend it ; the best intentions will not 
induce an audience to lend their ears to a dull discourse, 
badly delivered. The arts requisite to the attainment 
of your object are not in themselves censurable ; and, if 
you deem them unworthy, it should be because you feel 
yourself to be above the part you purpose to perform. 
You should not attempt to address such an audience, 
unless you are prepared to bring yourself down to the 
level of their intelligence ; but, having resolved to 
address them, you must talk after their fashion, and not 
according to your own ideal of something better and 
loftier. Indeed, this rule extends to all oratory. There 
is no compulsion upon you to make a speech ; if you 
cannot conform to the character of your audience, you 



XLIIL THE OEATOEY OF THE PLATFORM. 293 

have the remedy in your own hands, by refusal to 
depart from your own standard of good sense or good 
taste ; but, having resolved to stand upon the platform, 
play your part properly, according to the work to be 
done and the materials on which you work, and submit, 
if not cheerfully yet thoroughly, to the conditions by 
which alone success is practicable. 

Nor will the exercise be without benefit to you. To 
unbend, to come down from the high regions of pure 
reason and place yourself on a level with common 
minds — to be unwise now and then — even to put on the 
cap and bells for the amusement of women and small- 
minded men — is not altogether time wasted. Something 
is to be learned from contact with your fellow-creatures, 
that will often serve to filter philosophy, and make 
wisdom practical. You will return to the lofty region 
©f your meditations, refreshed by the relaxation, and 
with a new page added to your knowledge of human 
nature. It is not a very noble one that is revealed in 
such gatherings as those for commanding whose applause 
I have here endeavoured to give you some hints ; but it 
is perhaps the most extensive of any, for it is the exhi- 
bition of the commonplace mind, in the condition in 
which it is most open to observation. 



294 



Letter XLIV. 

THE ORATORY OF THE PLATFORM (CONTINUED). 

I will now ask yon to accompany me to the Pnblic 
Meeting, properly so called, to which not only are all 
classes invited, but to which, they come. Let us see 
how these should be treated from the platform. 

Occasionally, some topic of local interest will gather 
together an assemblage representing the whole popula- 
tion ; but the true public meeting is seldom evoked for 
any but political purposes. At all events, a political 
meeting, and especially an election, is the typical as- 
sembly that will most conveniently illustrate the hints 
I am about to offer to you for the cultivation of that 
most important branch of platform oratory. If I treat 
of it with more minuteness of detail than I have 
devoted to some other parts of the subject, it is because 
experience has proved to me the great importance of 
proficiency in this art, especially to the members of our 
Profession, who, more than any others, are called upon 
to exercise it. At political meetings, the Lawyers are 
always expected to be the speakers, and are so. Their 
fellow-citizens assume it to be their business to talk, 



XLV. THE 0RAT0EY OF THE PLATFORM, 295 

and therefore look to them as the proper mouthpieces 
of a meeting. A Solicitor in the provinces can scarcely 
avoid the leadership of a party and an agency at the 
elections. He cannot properly discharge the duties of 
these posts of honour and influence, unless he can make 
a tolerable speech at a public meeting ; and the more his 
skill in the management of it, the greater his power, 
the higher his position, and the more valuable his 
services. 

The art of Platform Oratory is not less useful to the 
Barrister. If you should not be called upon to act on 
behalf of others, I hope you may at some time hereafter 
be required to exercise the art in the character of a can- 
didate, when you will find it to be of equal service to 
you. It is because I have had extensive experience of it 
in both characters, and have gained such knowledge of 
it as I possess in the rough school of personal encounter 
with these assemblies, that I venture to impart to you 
the result of those rude teachings. 

To speak plainly, then, this class of public meeting is 
a mob, and no other word so properly describes it, and 
the speaking that alone will succeed with it is mob- 
oratory. 

You must not shrink from this title because it is often 
used reproachfully by those who are unable to accom- 
plish it. The name of "Mob Orator " is freely applied 
to every speaker who can really influence a miscellaneous 
meeting. If you cannot bear it, you should make up 
your mind at once to retreat from the pursuit of ambi- 
tion in political life. To succeed, you must submit to 
the conditions of success. Your object is to sway the 
minds of those to whom you speak ; to do this you must 
speak in such manner as most moves them, and whatever 



296 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



name is given to that manner, yon must accept it with- 
out shame, or resign the objects you are seeking. But 
though the name of "Mob Orator" is of ill repute, the 
evil is in name only ; there is nothing in the character 
necessarily dishonourable, or degrading. The art is an 
honest art, provided only that it be not applied to dis- 
honest ends. No man has cause to be ashamed of 
swaying the minds of his fellow-men, even though 
called a "mob." Persuasion is as permissible an in- 
strument as argument, and an appeal to the feelings as 
an address to the reason. If the utterance of sentiment 
and emotion is not so lofty an exercise of the intellect as 
the putting forth of logic, there is in it nothing degrad- 
ing, either to the mind that speaks or to the ear that 
listens. It is simply an adaptation of means to the end, 

Understand me, that I use the word "mob" only for 
brevity's sake, and because I can find no other word that 
so nearly expresses my meaning. But you must not 
read it in quite the popular sense of it. As commonly 
used, it implies a disorderly assembly : I use it as des- 
cribing a miscellaneous gathering of all classes, but in 
which the lower classes predominate. The tone of such 
a meeting is therefore necessarily given by the most 
numerous section of it ; and although the most culti- 
vated minds leaven it more or less, according to the 
proportion they bear to the whole crowd, the general 
character of the mass will always be caught from the 
character of the predominant class. 

Here it is that you may witness the most striking 
proofs of the power of sympathy. No observant and 
reflecting man can doubt the presence and potency of 
this influence of mind upon mind, operating through some 
unknown medium within certain undefined limits. The 



XLIV. THE ORATORY OF THE PLATFORM, 297 

proofs are rife in the records of the past, and may be 
seen around us continually. It is an influence to which, 
as it appears to me, sufficient importance has not been 
given by historians or philosophers, and its presence 
would probably be found to solve many problems other- 
wise inexplicable. That influence seems to be exercised 
by mere contact, without communication through the 
five senses, and to be multiplied by numbers, so that the 
emotions of all are imparted to each. This would 
explain the entire series of those perplexing phenomena 
which are seen in popular phrenzies, delusions and 
manias, and of which a panic will offer the most intelli- 
gible explanation. It is a fact that fear is thus com- 
municated by some imperceptible influence. An incident 
that would not cause a nerve of one man to quiver, will 
make ten men turn pale, annihilate the courage of 
twenty men, cause a hundred men to run away, and 
deprive a thousand men of reason. What is this, but 
fear operating by multiplication of fear ? The small 
fright felt by each influences all the rest by sympathy 
and the result is the accumulated fear of the entire mass 
imparting itself to each one and causing the terror that 
is not the less real because it is unfounded. Precisely 
the same operation that causes panic is ever at work in 
all mixed assemblies, influencing them by other emotions, 
and so great is it, that even the most powerful intellects, 
habitually under the sway of reason, find it difficult to 
be resisted. 

I have enlarged upon this subject because the know- 
ledge of it will conduce greatly to success upon the 
platform. This fact is the foundation of mob-oratory ; 
you will not sway a mixed assembly, unless you take 
into account that power of sympathy. You will, I hope, 

o 3 



298 



THE ART OF SPEAKING, 



clearly understand what I mean by it when the term is 
here used. 

What, then, is the character of the assembly thus 
strangely influenced ? 

In the first place, it is almost wholly impulsive. It 
is governed entirely by its feelings. Eeason has scarcely 
a perceptible control over it. Argument, such as the 
trained intellect recognises and obeys, is of no avail. 

Consequently, you must address yourself to its 
emotions. What is their character ? 

To the honour of human nature be it said, that the 
emotions of a multitude — of men in masses — are almost 
always right, as their judgment is almost always wrong. 
Even if they fall into wrong acts, these are usually the 
results of right feelings. Some generous or noble sen- 
timent will be found to underlie emotions that bear the 
aspect of malevolence, and to be the parent of passions 
that are demoniacal in their issues. 

It has been noticed in the penny theatres, frequented 
by the population that feeds our gaols, that a noble, a 
generous, or an honest sentiment never fails to evoke a 
burst of applause. Vice receives no honour even from 
the vicious, who cheer the virtue they will not prac- 
tise. A play that did not end with the punishment of 
vice and the reward of virtue would be hooted from the 
boards patronised by the criminal class ! 

A mob has a large measure of self-esteem — as if 
proud of the power of numbers. The humblest person 
feels his self-importance swell by association ; he is not 
conscious of his individual, insignificance in the crowd. 

An English mob possesses, to a marked degree, the 
English sense of humour. It is readily tickled to 
laughter, and often its swelling wrath may be turned 



XLIV, THE ORATORY OF THE PLATFORM. 299 

aside by a judicious jest. But it is by humour, not by 
wit, that a mob is moved. The keenest wit would be 
unappreciated, because it is not understood. Humour 
never fails. 

A mob is usually good-tempered, perhaps always so, 
save where the very object of the meeting is to give 
expression to evil emotions previously engendered. Be- 
ware, then, how you run counter to the passion of the 
moment. If you would avert it, you must fall in with 
it, that you may guide it. Admit the grievance, ac- 
knowledge the justice of that indignation, but suggest 
some other redress. Perfect good-temper on your part 
will go far to ensure good-temper on the part of your 
audience. Let no provocation induce you for one 
moment to lose your temper. Meet hootings with a 
smile and parry abuse with a jest ; if there is distur- 
bance, be calm and composed, fold your arms, and await 
patiently the return of order, without the slightest ex- 
pression of vexation or alarm. Soon you will find the 
majority of the meeting enlisted in your support and 
compelling the disorderly minority to silence or expul- 
sion. I have never known this to fail, even amid the 
tempest that usually rages around the hustings at an 
election. 

If there is a show of violence, make no show of fear. 
A mob is very cowardly ; it is wholly wanting in moral 
courage, and it can boast but of little physical courage, 
because it has no cohesion or mutual reliance. Happily, 
the multiplication of emotion, which makes its passions 
so formidable, does not extend to its acts. It wants the 
elements for action : it has no cohesion, no organisation, 
no mutual reliance ; it is disintegrated, and each indi- 
vidual atom of which it is composed is compelled to look 



300 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



only to himself, not being assured whether his neighbours 
will not desert him in his need. A firm front, a bold 
eye, a brave bearing on your part, not only strike a kind 
of awe into the offenders, but certainly command the 
respect of the many, who feel a strong sympathy with 
them wherever shown, and will enlist a support that 
will effectually protect you from the threatened violence. 
They will even shame the furious from their intent. I 
have seen the mob drop the stones they had lifted to 
throw, and greet with an enthusiastic cheer the man 
whom they had failed to terrify. 

This being the characteristic of an English mob, such 
as you will have to encounter at political gatherings, 
and especially at elections, you will readily learn how to 
deal with it. 

The inexperienced imagine that a mob will prefer an 
orator who descends to its own level, and talks to it 
after its own fashion. This is a grave mistake. A mob 
likes best the speaker who stands above his audience, and 
keeps above them, To talk down to them is condescen- 
sion, than which nothing is more obnoxious. The loftier 
the orator the more gratifying to the assembly is his de- 
ference to them. Moreover, an English mob has the 
English love of aristocracy : as a mob they do not 
relish orators of their own class ; they prefer to listen to 
a gentleman, and if he bears a title, so much the more 
is he welcome. Successful mob-oratory, therefore, by 
no means implies vulgarity, or coarseness of speech or 
of manner. On the contrary, put on your grandest 
manner, and speak in your loftiest style ; but with this 
proviso, that your language is not too fine. In the pro- 
gress of these epistles I have had such frequent occasion 
to urge upon you the avoidance of learned language, and 



XLIY. THE OEATORY OF THE PLATFORM. 301 

the preference of plain English for the transmission of 
your thoughts to others, that I fear to weary you by 
repetition ; but if it be a useful hint for addressing even 
select assemblies, it is necessary for speaking to a mob. 
And you may do so without lapsing into vulgarity, for 
it is the glory of our English tongue- — and perhaps we 
are indebted to it for much of the power of the British 
nation — that the thoughts of the wise may not only be 
clothed, but conveyed with accuracy and force, in the 
language of the common people. 



302 



Letter XLV. 

ORATORY OF THE PLATFORM (CONCLUDED). 

The speaker who can influence a mob is usually stig- 
matised by those who cannot do so as a demagogue. It 
is well to be advised of this probable consequence of 
successful Platform Oratory, that you may be prepared 
to meet and defy it. Demagoguism consists not in the 
use of those arts of oratory by which an assembly is 
moved — not in saying in the most effective manner that 
which you desire to say, and may with honour say ; — but 
in saying that which is not your sincere opinion, or 
which you do not verily believe, for the purpose of in- 
suring applause and support. If you are honest with 
your audience, you may rightfully express your honest 
thoughts in any fashion that will best secure for them a 
welcome ; but if you seek to lure by the utterance of 
that which is not your faith, you play the demagogue, 
and the name is then properly applied to you. 

The manner of mob oratory should, like the matter 
of it, be bold, confident and energetic. You must feel 
the most perfect self-confidence and show it ; you must 
speak out with the full power of your voice, throw all 



XLV. THE ORATORY OF THE PLATFORM. 



303 



your energy into the effort, and employ emphatic action. 
Let there be no appearance of hesitation for thoughts or 
words ; go on, say something, sense or nonsense, any- 
thing rather than seem perplexed. An English mob is 
peculiarly sensible to whatever savours of the ludicrous, 
and quick to seize upon weaknesses and turn them to 
ridicule. A public meeting at an election time licenses 
every wag in the crowd to let off a joke at your expense, 
and he is never slow to avail himself of the opportunity. 
Never wince under it ; or, at least, if it pricks you, do 
not show that you are hit. If you have sufficient self- 
possession, join in the laugh, and laughingly turn the 
jest upon the jester. This leaves you master of the 
field, and his discomfiture will deter those in a crowd 
who are always ready to follow the lead. 

The kind of interruptions with which you are liable 
to be visited by the irreverent jesters who form part of 
every mob are exhibited in the admirable description of 
the election in "Pickwick." The gentleman with a 
weak voice is advised by one in the crowd "to send 
home and inquire if he had left his voice under the pil- 
low ; " and the mayor is interrupted by a shout of 
" Success to his worship the mayor, and may he never 
forget the tin and sarsepan business as he got his fortun 
by." These are not exaggerations of the fun you will 
have to face at an election, and you must be prepared 
to receive it with good humour. 

Speak out. Speak up. Do not wait for the signifi- 
cant shout that will come to you if you speak small. 
Not only is your power over a crowd dependent upon 
your being heard, but a full, clear voice has a power 
of its own, apart from the thoughts which it conveys. 
It creates an impression of reality and earnestness ; it 



304 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



commands attention, and the mind itself is more readily 
reached through the full ear. 

And this is a fit occasion for a few hints on oratory 
in the open air. 

Most persons find this very difficult of accomplish- 
ment, very trying to the lungs, and very crazing, indeed, 
to the voice. Beginners usually speak from a window, 
or from a hustings, in the same tones as they use in a 
room. They are immediately put out by finding that 
the sounds they have sent forth seem to be swallowed 
up in space, and that no echo of them comes back to 
their ears. Consequently they are in utter ignorance 
how far off they have been heard. If not unpleasantly 
informed by the usual cry of " Speak out," from beyond 
the favoured circle in the foreground, the unpractised 
orator has no means whatever of measuring his fire. 
In either case, he strains his voice to the utmost, with 
still the same unpleasant sensation that it is lost. Louder 
and louder ; still no echo ; then pain ; then hoarseness, 
which will not be cured for days. But when you speak 
in the open air, there is no echo ; your voice will be 
heard just so far as you can throw it, and no further, 
and it will grow fainter as the distance grows, until the 
words die away in inarticulate murmurs. Nature has 
given great variety of powers of voice, and if the vocal 
organs have not been framed for it, no training will 
create power. But the voice may be vastly strengthened 
by judicious exercise, under instruction ; and in a former 
letter I have thrown out some suggestions for educating 
it. Besides the compass of the voice, there is a great 
deal in its management. Mere loudness will not suffice 
for the open air, and straining will never succeed. The 
moment that the effort becomes painful, the voice loses 



XLV. THE ORATORY OF THE PLATFORM. 305 

in force, and a sense of pain is the best warning that 
you have trespassed beyond } r our capacities. On the 
instant that the sensation occurs, moderate your tones, 
relax the exertion, and rather close your speech than 
continue it at such risk of injury to your voice. 

But mere loudness will not make the voice audible in 
the open air more than in a room. You will be heard 
further off by help of clearness and fullness of sound, 
and, more than all, by very distinct articulation. You 
should speak slowly, looking at the most distant of the 
assembly, and the voice addressed to them, even if they 
should be beyond its reach, will fall upon the furthest 
ear to which its capacities can extend. Here, also, it is 
of the utmost importance that you should use the upward 
inflection ; that is, that you should raise the voice at 
every pause or close of a sentence, instead of lowering it. 

In open-air speaking it is impossible to employ the 
delicate variety of tones so effective in a room, where 
the voice may be lowered almost to a whisper without 
being lost to the audience, for the degree of loudness 
necessary to be exercised where there is no echo to help 
you forbids the expression of more than the ruder tones 
of emotion, and these must be somewhat exaggerated to 
be effective. Consequently, action is especially demanded 
on these occasions. When the great orator of the an- 
cients placed action as the foremost, and, indeed, almost 
the only, rule he could prescribe for oratory, he had in 
his mind the open-air assemblies to which alone he was 
accustomed. Thus limited, the saying is more true 
than it appears when applied to the oratory usually 
required in the less genial atmosphere of the North. 
But when you speak in the open air, you are under the 
conditions assumed by him, and you should resort to 



306 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



action liberally, both in quantity and quality. Not only 
should there be much of it, but it may be what in a 
room would be called exaggerated and in bad taste. To 
the mass of your audience it is like an interpretation of 
your words ; to the illiterate it is more readily intel- 
ligible than words. By attracting the eye it keeps dull 
minds awake, and secures attention — an effort to which 
the common mind is not easily induced. The expression 
"beating a speech into them" has a truth in it. 

And for the matter of your speech, it should be 
thorough. A mob cannot understand refined distinc- 
tions ; it does not relish half-heartedness ; it hates 
qualifications and hesitations. Go with them or go 
against them, but you must not halt half way. Be very 
earnest. Their perceptions are marvellously keen ; they 
can detect hollowness by a sort of instinct, and although 
they do not express the suspicion by outward gesture, 
you will see by their manner that you have not carried 
them with you. There is at least one satisfactory 
characteristic of a mob ; it is thoroughly honest. If it 
approves, it is with no half applause ; if it dissents from 
you, it plainly tells you so. Its cheers and hisses alike 
mean what they say, and as they are given without 
reserve, you are left in no doubt as to the effect of your 
speech. This is very pleasant after the silence of some 
cold and critical audience, from whose hands or lips 
you cannot gather whether you have contented or dis- 
pleased them. The expression of undisguised applause 
by a crowd is an intoxicating sensation which, however 
the sober man may despise it, is certainly a pleasure 
that will not be lightly esteemed by those who have 
tasted of it. 

It is singular that the best specimen of mob oratory 



XLV. THE ORATORY OF THE PLATFORM. 307 

which the world possesses should be the product of the 
creative genius of a dramatist. But so it is ; Shakes- 
peare has given to us, among his many marvellous 
inspirations, two speeches supposed to be addressed to 
mobs, each in its way admirable, but one of them having 
consummate excellence. In Julius Ccesar he has intro- 
duced two orations, by men of very different characters, 
having different aims : one designed to subdue, the other 
to excite, the passions of the audience ; the one all 
honesty, the other all art. The scene follows imme- 
diately upon the death of Caesar by the daggers of the 
assassins, of whom Brutus was the chief. The mob are 
hesitating whether to applaud the patriotism that had 
killed a tyrant, or to condemn the daggers that had 
destroyed an admired and honoured emperor. Whether 
the current of this wavering mood was to be turned to 
applause or wrath, would depend upon the skilful 
management of those who might address them. Both 
were men held in high esteem by the populace, but for 
different qualities : Brutus for his known honesty, frank- 
ness and patriotism ; Antony for his persuasiveness, his 
flattery, his lavishness and the charm that youth carries 
with it. Brutus was upon his defence, although no 
accuser had appeared ; he had killed Caesar, and he 
aims to justify the deed to those who had been Caesar's 
votaries. They were still hesitating between the man 
and the act ; he sought to satisfy them that he had 
done the deed unselfishly, for the salvation of their 
liberties. His case was plain and straightforward, and 
thus plainly he set it before them. It is perfect for 
its purpose. I have, as before, indicated -by italics, 
capitals and dashes, the manner in which it should 
be read, beginning with a loud firm voice, and pre- 



308 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



serving throughout a tone and manner of unbending 
dignity. 

Romans Countrymen and lovers ! hear me for my 

cause and be silent -that you may hear Believe me 

for mine honour and have respect to mine honour that you may 

believe Censure me in your wisdom and awake your 

senses that you may the better judge If there be any 

in this assembly any dear friend of Caesar's to him I say 

that Brutus's love to Cozsar was no less than his If 

then that friend demand why Brutus rose up against Caesar 

this is my answer Not that I loved Caesar less but 

that I loved Rome more ■ — Had you rather Caesar were 

living, and die all slaves than that Caesar were dead to 

live all freemen? As Caesar loved me 1 weep for 

him as he was fortunate 1 rejoice at it as he 

was valiant -I honour him -but as he was ambitious 

■ 1 SLEW him- There is tears for his love -joy 

for his fortunes honour for his valour but DEATH for 

his ambition Who is here so base that would be a 

bondman ? If any speak for him have I 

offended Who is here so rude that would not be a 

Roman ? If any speak for him have I offended 

-Who is here so vile that will not love his country ? 

If any speak for him have I offended. 

1 pause for a reply. 

Citizens, None, Brutus, none. 

Brutus. Then NONE have I offended 1 have done 

no more to Caesar than you should do to Brutus The 

question of his death is enrolled in the Capitol his glory 

not extenuated wherein he was worthy nor his offences 

enforced for which he suffered death Here comes his body — 

mourned by Mark Antony who though he had no hand in 

his death shall receive the benefit of his dying a place in the 

commonwealth as which of you shall not ? With this 

I depart — — that as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome 

1 have the same dagger for myself when it shall 

please my country to need my death. 

This plain manly speech had the effect designed ; it 



XLV. THE ORATORY OF THE PLATFORM. 



309 



turned the tide of popular feeling, which forthwith 
began to now in full flood in favour of the orator and 
his party. The citizens were excited to enthusiasm. 
They shout — 

Citizens. Live Brutus live live ! 

1st Citizen. Bring him with triumph home to his house. 

2nd Cit. Give him a statue with his ancestors ! 

3rd Cit. Let him be Coesar. 

4:th Cit. Caesar's better parts 

Shall be crown'cl Brutus ! 

1st Cit. We'll bring him to his house with shouts and clamours. 
Brutus. My countrymen 

2nd Cit. Peace silence 

Brutus speaks ! 

1st Cit. Peace, ho ! 

Brutus. Good countrymen let me depart alone ; 

And for my sake stay here with Antony 

Do grace to Cozsar's corpse and grace his speech 

Tending to Caesar's glories which Mark Antony 

By our jiermission is allowed to make 

I do entreat you not a man depart 

Save I cdone till Antony have spoke. [Exit. 

1st Cit. Stay, ho ! and let us hear Mark Antony ! 

2nd Cit. Let him go up into the public chair ■ 

We'll hear him Noble Antony go up ! 

Ant. For Brutus' 1 sake I am beholden to you. 

±th Cit. What does he say of Brutus ? 

3rd Cit. He says for Bmtus' 1 sake 

He finds himself beholden to us all. 

4th Cit. 'Twere best he speak no harm of Brutus here. 
1st Cit. This Caesar was sl tyrant. 

3rd Cit. Nay, that's certain ; 

We are bless "d that Borne is rid of him. 

2nd Cit. Peace Let us hear what Antony can say. 

Ant. You gentle Romans ■ 

Cit. Peace, ho ! let us hear him. 

This was the unfriendly and even prejudiced mob 
which Antony was to address. Observe how artfully he 



310 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



begins with an endeavour to conciliate them so far as to 
give him a hearing ; how he falls in with the current of 
their humour, and goes with it, that he may guide it. 
Every part of this marvellous address will reward your 
careful study : its art is unrivalled ; there is nothing like 
it upon record, nor in the whole range of fiction could its 
equal be found. It is a model of Platform Oratory. He 
begins in a low voice, with tones expressing profound 
grief, and a manner showing extreme deference to the 
assembly around him. He is about to appeal from their 
love for their country to their love for the man whose 
bleeding corpse was then lying at his side. 

Friends Romans COUNTRYMEN — . kndme 

your ears 

I come to bury Caesar not to praise him 

The evil that men do lives after them 

The good is oft interred with their bones 

So let it be with Caesar The noble Brutus 

Hath told you Caesar was ambitious 

If it ivere so it was a grievous fault 

And grievously hath Caesar answered it 

Here under leave of Brutus and the rest 

(For Brutus is an honourable man 

So are they all all honourable men) 

Come I to speak in Ccesar's funeral 

He was my friend faithful and just to me 

But Brutus says he was ambitious 

And Brutus is an honourable man 

He hath brought many captives home to Rome 

Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill 

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious ? 

When that the poor have cried CiESAR hath wept- — 

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff 

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious 

And Brutus is an honourable man. 

You all did see that on the Lupercal 

I thrice presented him the kingly crown 



XLY. THE ORATORY OF THE PLATFORM. 



311 



Which he did thrice refuse Was THIS AMBITION ? — 

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious 

And sure he is an honourable man 

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke — — ■ 

But here I am to speak what I do KNOW — 

You all did love him once not without cause ■ 

What cause withholds you then to mourn for him ? — 

judgment — thou art fled to brutish beasts 

And men have lost their reason ! Bear with me — 

My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar 

And I must pause till it come back to me 

At this point of pause, artfully introduced, the mob 
exhibits signs of being swayed by the speaker, — they 
are beginning to veer round again. 

1st Cit. Methinks, there is much reason in his sayings. 

2nd Cit. If thou consider rightly of the matter, Caesar had 

great wrong 

3rd Cit. Has he masters, — 

1 fear*there will a worse come in his place. 

±th Cit. Marked ye his icords he would not take the 

crown 

Therefore 'tis certain he was not ambitious 

1st Cit. If it be found so, some will dear abide it. 

2nd Cit. Poor soul his eyes are red as fire with weeping. 

3rd Cit. There's not a nobler man in Rome than Antony. 
ith Cit. Now mark him, he begins again to speak. 

The orator perceives the impression he has made, and 
now addresses himself to their great love for his friend 
and the memory of Caesar's former greatness. His tones 
express profound emotion. 

But yesterday the word of Caesar might 

Have stood against the world NOW he lies there 

And none so poor to do him reverence 

masters ! if I were disposed to stir 

Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage 

1 should do Brutus wrong and Cassius wrong 

Who — you all knoiu — are honourable men 



312 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



I will not do them wrong ■ — I rather choose 

To wrong the dead to wrong myself and YOU 

Than I will wrong such honourable men — - - 

But here's & parchment with the seal of Caesar 

I found it in his closet 't is his WILL 

Let but the commons hear this testament 

Which pardon me 1 do not mean to read 

And they would go and kiss dead Caesar's wounds 

And dip their napkins in his sacred blood 

Yea beg a hair of him for memory 

And — dying — mention it within their wills 

Bequeathing it as a rich legacy ■ 

Unto their issue. 

4:th Cit. We'll hear the will. Read it, Mark Antony. 

Cits. The will — the will we will hear Caesar's will. 

Ant. Have patience — gentle friends 1 must not read 

it 

It is not meet you know how Caesar loved you 

You are not wood you are not stones but men 

And being MEN hearing the will of C^sar 

It will inflame you it will make you mad 

'T is good you know not that you are his heirs 

For — if you should — what would come of it ! 

4:th Cit. Read the will — we'll hear it, Antony 

You shall read us the will Cesar's will. 

Ant. Will you be patient ? Will you stay awhile ? 

I have overshot myself to tell you of it 

I fear 1 wrong the honourable men 

Wliose daggers have stabbed Caesar 1 do fear it. 

4tth Cit. They were traitors honourable men- . 

Cits. The will the testament. 

2nd Cit. They were villains murderers The will 

read the will. 

Ant. You will compel me then to read the will ? 

Then make a ring about the corpse of Caesar 

And let me show you him that made the wtll 

Shall I descend and will you give me leave ? 

Cit. Come down ! 

2nd Cit. Descend ! 



XLV. THE OEATOEY OF THE PLATFORM, 



313 



3rd Cit. You shall have leave. 
4:th Cit. A ring stand round. 

Antony. If you have tears prepare to shed them now 

You — all — do know this mantle 1 remember 

The first time ever Caesar put it on — — — 

'Twas on a summer evening in his tent 

That day he overcame the Nervii — 

Look ! in this place ran Cassius 1 dagger through 

See what a rent the envious Casca made — 

Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed 

And — as he plucked his CURSED steel away 

Mark how the blood of Caesar followed it 

As rushing out of doors to be assured 

If Brutus so unkindly knocked or no 

For Brutus as you know was Caesar's angel 

Judge ! you gods — how dearly Caesar loved him 

This was the most unkindest cut of all 

For when the noble Caesar saw HIM stab 

Ingratitude more strong than traitor's arms 

Quite vanquished him — then burst his mighty heart 

And in his mantle muffling up his face 

Even at the base of Pompey's statue 

That all the while ran blood great Cesar -FELL 

what a fall was there my countrymen 

Then / and you and all of us fell down 

Whilst bloody treason flourished over us 

Gh — now you weep and I perceive you feel 

The dint of pity these are gracious drops— 

Kind souls what weep you when you but behold 

Our Caesar's vesture wounded ? Look you here 

Here is HIMSELF marred as you see with 

TRAITORS - 

2nd Cit. We will be revenged revenge 

1st Cit. Oh piteous spectacle ! 

2nd Cit. Oh noble Ceesar ! 

±th Cit. Oh traitors — villains ! 

about — seek — burn — fire — kill — slay—* — let not a traitor 
live. 

Ant. Stay countrymen. 

P 



314 



THE ART OF SPEAKING. 



1st Cit. Peace there hear the noble Antony 

2nd Cit. We'll hear him — we'll follow him -we'll die with 

him.— — - 

Ant. Good friends sweet friends let me not stir you up 

To such a sudden flood of mutiny — — ■ 

They that have done this deed are honourable — — 

What private griefs they have alas ! — / know not 

That made them do it— — they are wise and honourable 
And will— no doubt — with reasons answer you 

I come not-- — friends to steal away your hearts -= — - 

/ am no orator -as Brutus is— — — 

But— — as you know me all — a plain — blunt man 

That love my friend and that they know full well — — 

That gave me public leave to speak of him 

For / have neither wit ^nor words — —nor ivorth — — 

Action nor utterance -nor the power of speech 

To stir men's blood — — — -/ only speak right on — — 

I tell you —that which you yourselves do know 

Show you sweet Cossafs wounds poor - — - poor dumb 

MOUTHS — 

And bid them speak for me — —But were / Brutus 
And Brutus Antony— — — there were an Antony 

Would ruffle up your spirits -and put a tongue 

In every wound of Caesar that should make 

The STONES of Rome to rise and mutiny, 



315 



Letter XLVI. 

SOCIAL ORATORY. 

I come now to that which, until you have tried it, 
appears the easiest of all forms of oratory, but which is 
in truth the most difficult of all, and to which I pro- 
pose to give the significant name of Social Oratory, 
meaning by that the speech-makings that are addressed 
to small parties assembled not for business, but for 
festive or other social purposes, so large a proportion of 
which is demanded at one kind of gathering, said to be 
so peculiarly English, that the title of " Dinner-table 
Oratory" might have been given to it with almost equal 
propriety. 

Doubtless you will exclaim, "A speech after dinner — 
a toast proposed — thanks returned — surely anybody 
who can say anything can do that!" You need not 
try it to be satisfied that it is very much more difficult 
than you have thought it to be. Sit at any table where 
toasts are given and responded to, and seeing what a 
mess four out of five of the speakers make of it, you 
will begin to suspect that it is not quite so easy an 
accomplishment. Vacuity of thought and confusion of 

p 2 



316 



THE ART OF SPEAKING 



words are the prevalent characteristics ; some break 
down altogether; some stammer through a maze of dis- 
connected words ; some are fluent, but it is fluent 
nonsense ; some cannot extricate themselves for a mo- 
ment from the conventional commonplaces. But among 
them, perhaps, are two or three, rari nantes in gurgite 
vasto, who say good things, perhaps even new things, in 
apt language and with a pleasant manner. Yet you 
will find often that the persons who have so pleased 
you are by no means distinguished for genius or even 
for general ability, having intellects rather below the 
average, and intelligence by no means capacious. 

Should you be called upon " to propose a toast," or to 
return thanks for having been yourself proposed, you will 
probably make a discovery. You were tolerably fluent 
and talked sensibly enough at the Union in Oxford, at 
the Forensic Society in London, and at occasional public 
meetings ; but you feel very foolish now, and look as 
foolish as you feel. You could talk pretty well when you 
had a subject to talk about. You have not learned the 
art of talking about nothing, and the accomplishment of 
saying something when you have nothing to say. 

This is the secret of Social Oratory, and explains its 
difficulties, its failures, and its successes. It can scarcely 
be called an art, for it seems to be a special faculty with 
which a few are gifted, but which is denied to the many. 
Of course, like all powers of mind or body, it is capable 
of cultivation, but, like the gift of poetry or music, it 
must be given by nature, and if the germ is not there, 
it cannot be implanted. 

Another peculiarity of this form of oratory is, that 
the larger the intellect, the more refined the taste, the 
loftier the intelligence, the more its difficulty in after- 



XLVI. SOCIAL ORATORY. 



317 



dinner speaking. The reason is its consciousness and 
sensitiveness. Its perception of the ridiculous contrast 
between the bigness of the language and the littleness of 
the subject, its sense of the hollo wness of the praises and 
professions, paralyses its powers ; it can find nothing to 
say that is at once new and true, and its pride revolts 
from indulgence in the conventionalities which the 
parrot voices around him repeat again and again, with 
apparent unconsciousness of their threadbare wearisome- 
ness. 

Social Oratory, then, is the art of saying a great deal 
about nothing, and saying it in a pleasant manner. It 
is not designed for any other purpose than to please for 
the moment. It partakes of the character of all social 
intercourse, which is to be as agreeable to one another 
as possible, and to keep all that is disagreeable out of 
sight and hearing. The standing-up talk of the dinner- 
table should be only the sitting-down talk of the 
drawing-room, somewhat amplified, judiciously strung 
together, and flavoured with a few flatteries not per- 
mitted to be addressed to a man in a tete-a-tete, but 
which you are allowed, and indeed expected, to pour 
forth without limit of quantity or quality when you 
are speaking of him to others in his presence. 

Can it be, you ask, that such exaggerated epithets as 
are lavished upon a man whose health is proposed at a 
dinner-table can be gratifying to him ? Do not his 
common sense and good taste revolt, as much as do 
yours, from laudations so undeserved that they have the 
appearance of ironical insults ? You have not yet 
learned the measure of human vanity. All men are 
open to flattery, more or less, but of most men the 
capacity for it is boundless. The most modest of us is 



318 



THE AET OF SPEAKING. 



not insensible to its influence, if judiciously employed. 
" We think that we hate flattery/' says the French cynic, 
" when all that we hate is the awkwardness of the flat- 
terer." This is the key-note to successful Social Oratory. 
Flattery is the foundation and substance, and success is 
proportioned to the skill with which it is applied. Coarse 
flattery is better than none — but refined flattery, grace- 
fully draped, so that the object of it may enjoy it with- 
out the affectation of a disclaimer, is the climax of 
after-dinner speech-making. But laudatory language is 
limited. If there are many to be thus honoured at the 
same table, or if the occasions are frequent, repetition 
is unavoidable. It matters not. The reiteration that 
seems so awkward to you is not so apparent or so dis- 
agreeable to your audience. They will laugh again and 
again at the same joke, applaud with equal fervour the 
same flourish of compliments to the same persons, as if 
so good a thing could not be heard too often. It is not 
necessary, therefore, to Social Oratory that you should 
be continually saying new things, or dressing up stale 
thoughts in new sentences. Having mastered a set of 
phrases, you may repeat them year by year through 
your life, and gain rather than lose reputation by it. 

But being thus supplied with stock speeches, you 
should adapt them somewhat to the special purpose of 
the gathering. A single allusion to some topic sug- 
gested by the moment will carry off many minutes of 
stale platitudes, and secure for you the reputation of 
being an accomplished orator. For this purpose you 
should be ever on the watch, if you know, or suspect, 
that you are likely to be "called upon." Cultivate 
gaiety, rather than gravity, of tone and manner. Shun 
sermonising. Let your speech smack more of the 



XLVI. SOCIAL ORATORY. 



319 



champagne than the port. Let it be light, sparkling, 
playful, anything but dull. Suit the manner to the 
word. Do not attempt the oratorical in tone or action. 
Do not think of it as a speech, but only as talking on 
your feet without dialogue. Your business is not to 
instruct or inform, but to perform a ceremonial grace- 
fully, and if at the same time you can amuse, it will be 
a great triumph, and the company will be grateful to 
you for helping them through the ordeal which all 
are content to submit to, though all think it a dreadful 
bore. 

And this is another instance of the power of con- 
ventionality. There is not an individual in any party 
assembled for social purposes who does not look upon 
this conventional speech-making as an infliction he 
would gladly avoid, but which he must endure in ex- 
change for the good things of the table and in obedience 
to custom. So each says privately to his neighbour, 
who echoes the opinion ; the faces of the listeners un- 
mistakeably express their feelings, and their vehement 
applause when the speaker "resumes his seat" indicates 
rather their sense of joy that it is over than of pleasure 
in the performance. But when his turn comes each 
plays the same part, and the custom survives the 
anathemas, and will probably linger for a long time 
yet to come. 

I cannot offer you other hints for education in this 
branch of oratory than those already given for some 
others — practice. Little more can be done by way of 
teaching than to present some of the most prominent 
features of the art, and, more usefully still, by suggest- 
ing what to avoid ; but how to learn to do or avoid is 
a lesson which those who have attempted have always 



320 



THE AET OF SPEAKING, 



failed to teach, because it cannot be reduced to positive 
rules, but must depend upon the mental and physical 
capacities of the speaker. If his own intelligence will 
not prompt and his own good taste correct him, no 
instructions from others will drill him into becoming an 
adept in Social Oratory. 



321 



POSTSCBIPT. 

Inquiries have been made by some of those who have 
interested themselves in the establishment of Public 
Headings for some information to aid them in the con- 
duct of such societies. They originated with the Author 
of this volume, who first proposed and advocated them 
in the Critic and other journals. After the project had 
been thus subjected to discussion through the press, 
and received general approval, a party of those who 
had expressed their approbation of the scheme were 
invited to form a committee for the purpose of carrying 
it into operation. They acceded, and Lord Brougham 
accepted the office of President, the Author and Mr. 
0. J. Plump tre becoming the Honorary Secretaries. 

The Society succeeded in establishing Public Head- 
ings in many parts of London, and in still more 
numerous localities throughout the country. But its in- 
direct uses were of far more importance, for it caused the 
subject of Public Headings to be discussed in the news- 
papers, and induced great numbers of persons in all 
parts of the United Kingdom to study the Art of Bead- 
ing, that they might qualify themselves to take part in 
this endeavour to provide wholesome amusement for 



322 



POSTCBIPT. 



large classes, among whom the wealth of our literature 
could never be distributed but in the pleasing and 
attractive form of good reading. Having succeeded in 
creating the movement, the Society ceased from its 
labours. The work was done. 

The results of the experience thus obtained will usefully, 
and not inappropriately, close a volume, a considerable 
part of which is devoted to the Art of Beading. 

Half-a-dozen persons will suffice to establish Public 
Eeadings in any locality. No large committees nor 
liberal subscriptions are required. It will probably be 
self-supporting. At all events, the cost is very trifling. 
The Town Hall, or the Vestry Eoom, or the National 
or British School-room, can always be obtained, at no 
other expense than the candles for lighting it, and the 
Readers will be unpaid volunteers. 

The admission should be uniformly a penny. We 
found that any higher charge excluded the class whose 
presence was most desired. On the other hand, free 
admissions were not valued. The penny kept none 
away who desired to come, and it excluded those who 
follow a crowd for love of disorder. The fund thus 
supplied was almost invariably sufficient to pay the 
expenses of the Society. 

It is desirable to give notice to the visitors that, the 
Readings being designed for their amusement, they will 
not be expected to remain in the room longer than 
inclination bids. They should be assured that their 
departure will not be looked upon as unpolite, provided 
that they go at the close of some reading, and do not 
interrupt the audience who remain. 

The greatest difficulty has been to procure good 
Readers. These Public Readings have revealed the 



POSTSCEIPT. 



323 



results of the inattention with which the Art of Beading 
is treated at our schools and the little care given to its 
acquirement in after-life ; for not only is there an 
astounding paucity of tolerable Eeaders, but the vast 
majority read so badly as to be unendurable to an 
audience. 

Nor is the difficulty of procuring fit Eeaders the only 
one with which the Societies have had to grapple. 
Another trouble has attended this part of their duties, 
which has been found far more unmanageable, and which 
has proved, indeed, the single cause of failure with many. 
Equally astonishing with the entire incapacity to read 
properly is the ignorance of that incapacity on the part 
of the Eeaders. The first step in knowledge is to learn 
our ignorance ; the lowest deep of ignorance is uncon- 
sciousness of itself. It is a proof of the neglect into 
which the Art of Eeading has fallen, that even persons 
of educated taste may not only read execrably, but 
believe when they do so that they are reading well. 

This is everywhere the greatest trouble that besets the 
Public Eeadings. What can be done with the incapables 
who offer themselves so liberally as Eeaders ? It is 
awkward to say "You cannot read;" it is ruinous to 
the Society to suffer them to read, for they will inevit- 
ably scare away the company. Whenever the Public 
Eeadings have failed, it has been by reason of the in- 
fluence of bad Eeaders upon the audience. Good 
Eeaders have never failed to attract and keep a crowded 
room. Let, then, the Committee or Managers be firm 
in rejection of incompetency, however respectable or in- 
fluential. Thank the volunteer for the proffer of ser- 
vice, but tell him frankly that he must give some time 
to the study of the Art of Eeading before he can be 



324 



POSTSCEIPT. 



admitted to read in public ; remind him, good-temper- 
edly, that as he would not dream of attempting to sing 
in public before he had learned to sing, so neither with- 
out serious and laborious study of it should he venture 
upon Beading, which is an Art requiring education 
equally with the Art of Singing. The individual respon- 
sibility of making an intimation so unpleasing to vanity 
might be removed by a rule, that no person shall be per- 
mitted to read in public without having first read before 
the Committee and received their approval. If this should 
be inconvenient, the burden of rejection might be put 
upon the audience, thus : — Print a monthly list of sub- 
jects proposed for reading, with the names of the Eeaders ; 
send a copy of this list to each of the audience, whose 
names are entered as members of the Society, with a 
request that he or she would mark a certain number upon 
the list as those he would prefer for the next month's 
selection, and let the choice of the majority be adopted. 
This would at once interest the audience, by giving them 
a voice in the Headings which they are invited to hear, 
and would relieve the Committee from the pain of 
wounding a sensitive vanity. 

In making the selections for the evening, it is neces- 
sary to study variety. If possible, there should be 
three or four Eeaders, or even more, who should read in 
turn, and if only two, they should alternate. It is found 
that nothing serves more to keep the attention of the 
audience than a change of person and voice. 

Variety of subject is essential to success ; — the grave 
and the gay, poetry and prose, narrative, dialogue, and 
declamation should be introduced in turn. This re- 
quires some care on the part of the Managers, and it 
deserves care, for prosperity very much depends upon it. 



POSTSCRIPT. 



325 



Headers usually have special qualifications ; some ex- 
cel in poetry, some in dialogue, some in narrative ; some 
give powerful expression to pathos, and some are skill- 
ful in comedy. Allot to each his appropriate work. But, 
in the distribution of the work, let the Managers re- 
solve, and not the Eeaders, who, like actors, are rarely 
judges of their own capacities. 

The time given to the Public Eeadings should be 
limited. Never should it exceed one hour and a half ; 
but an hour is safer. Better that the audience should 
depart unwillingly, than that they should go away wearied 
and glad that it is over. 

If your funds will afford it, a programme of the 
evening's readings should be printed and distributed. 
This has been found to add largely to the audiences, and 
the cost is very trifling. It should state the subject of 
the extract, the name of the Author, and the Eeader. 

As for the selections, experience has taught much by 
which it would be well for the managers of Public Eead- 
ings to profit. Didactic readings, grave, dull, and dry, 
fail entirely ; they clear the benches in a week. Argu- 
mentative writing is equally distasteful. Narrative, if 
interspersed with amusing dialogue, is the most attrac- 
tive and popular. Then next in favour with miscel- 
laneous audiences are dramatic passages ; then, passion- 
ate and sentimental compositions, requiring expression 
on the part of the Eeaders — poetry of this class being 
preferred to prose ; and, lastly, mere narrative. It must 
be remembered that the object of these Public Eeadings 
is not formal instruction, but harmless, elevating, and 
wholesome amusement. They should be entertainments 
of a superior class — nothing more. 

A few hints to the Eeaders, for their gatherings, may 



326 



POSTSCEIPT. 



not be unacceptable. Do not go to them unprepared. 
Practise the reading at home. It is excellent study for 
the Eeaders to meet on off-nights in the room, and for 
each to read there in turn, the others playing the part 
of audience and critics, sitting at the remote part of the 
room, and instructing the Eeader of his faults as he pro- 
ceeds. " Speak up ; we can't hear you." " Don't bend 
your head down upon your book." " Look at us some- 
times." "Give a little more emphasis to that word." 
" Don't drop your voice at the end of that sentence." 
"More expression to that passage." Such interruptions 
by critics bent upon mutual improvement are invaluable, 
being the best possible education in the Art of Beading. 
It is certain that a Eeader will never learn what are his 
faults unless some listener gives him intimation of them 
at the moment, and who so fit as they who are them- 
selves pupils, engaged in the common purpose of acquiring 
a valuable accomplishment to be exercised together for 
the most commendable ends ? 

All Public Eeading must partake of the nature of 
acting. Dialogues must be read very nearly as they 
should be spoken upon the stage. Over-acting is so rare 
a fault that it is not necessary to warn against it. There 
must be exaggeration in Public Eeadings even beyond 
that which would be permissible in a private room. 

The Eeader should be sufficiently acquainted with his 
book not to require to keep his eyes fixed upon it as he 
reads. He should occasionally glance round upon the 
audience to invoke their attention, and to be sure 
that he is heard. The voice cannot be thrown out 
properly from a mouth bent over the book, and 
speaking to the page instead of reading from it. If 
there is a doubt whether the voice is sent out far enough 



EXEECISES IN READING. 



327 



to be heard by all, station one of the other Eeaders at 
the furthest seat, with an arranged signal should he find 
the utterance faint or indistinct. Lastly, read standing, 
with the light falling on the page from behind, the book 
upon a desk at the proper distance from the eye, and as 
you read, keep a finger upon the line, so that when you 
remove the eye to look at the audience, as you should 
do continually, the recurring glance may be instantly 
directed to the right place. For want of this little con- 
trivance to guide the eye, the most awkward confusion 
sometimes arises, the fear of which deters many from 
the practice of lifting their eyes from the page to the 
audience, a practice which adds so greatly to the effec- 
tiveness of reading, giving to it much of the personal 
sympathy and reality of speaking. 



EXEECISES IN BEADING. 
The following selection of Beadings that will be 
found to assist the learner in the acquisition of the Art 
of Beading, and in the exercise of it afterwards, will be 
useful also to supply the programme for Public Bead- 
ings, all of them having been proved by experience to 
be attractive to mixed audiences. 



PROSE. 

The Trial Scene 

The Election 

Sam Weller's Valentine , 

The Lady with the Yellow Curls 

The First of September , 

The Death of Paul Dombey 

Mrs. Gamp and Betsy Prig . 



Pickwick. 



Dombey osad Son. 
Martin Chuzzhwit. 



The Clerk of Copmanhurst and the Black Knight ... Ivanhoe. 



328 



EXEECISES IN BEADING. 



The Boots at the Holly Tree Inn ... Dickens. 

The Emperor's New Clothes Andersen. 

The Cricket on the Hearth... Dickens. 

The Lash in the Gold Fields ... 'Tis Never Too Late to Mend. 



Benedict and Beatrice ... 

Death of Caesar 

Falstaff at Gadshill ... 

Murder of Banquo 

The Drawing-room Scene 

The Duel 

The Critic 



DRAMA. 

Much Ado about Nothing. 

Julius Ccesai. 

... Second Part of King Henry IV. 

Macbeth. 

School for Scandal. 

The Rivals. 

Sheridan. 



POETRY. 



The Prisoner of Chillon 

The May Queen 

The Three Sons 

Lays of Ancient Rome 

The Deserted Village 

Song of the Shirt 

Bridge of Sighs 

Dream of Eugene Aram 

The Parting of the King 

Morte d'Artur 

Morning Prayer 

Death of Haiclee 

Evening Prayer in a Girls' School 

The Two Angels 

Haunted Houses 

The Old Clock on the Stairs 

The Spectre Host 

The Battle of Waterloo 

The Isles of Greece 

Ode to a Nightingale 

Genevieve 

The Old Cumberland Beggar 

The Last of the Flock 

Ode — Immortality 



Byron. 
. . . Tennyson. 

Moultrie. 
. . Macaulay. 
. . . Goldsmith. 
... ... Hood. 



Tennyson's Idylls. 

Tennyson. 

Milton. 

.. .... ... Byron. 

Hemans. 

Longfellow. 



... Byron. 
.. ... 

... Keats. 
Coleridge. 
Wordsworth. 



INDEX. 



A. 

ACTION— 

on speaking, hints for page 225 

AGTOE, THE — 

art of 77 

ADJECTIVES — 

use of, to be avoided 25 

ARTICULATION — 

study of 70, 221 

ATTITUDE — 

in reading 104 

B. 

BAR, ORATORY OF— 

neglect of study of ... , 9 

causes of 11 

cultivation of ... 258 

bad habits 259 

first studies for 260 

character of juries 261 

how to deal with a jury 262 

style of address to ... 263 

good temper ... 265 

common juries 267 

how influenced ... ,. ... ... 268 

special juries 272 

how to address the court , 275 

how to address magistrates ... 278 

BIBLE, THE— 

how to read 160 

BUSINESS SPEECH— 

hints for 250 

Q 



330 



INDEX, 



CLERGY, THE — 

necessity for studying the art of reading 

COMPOSITION — 

on talking, writing, and speaking 

COUET, THE— 

how to address ... „. ... ... 



,page 112 
, ... 189 
... 275 



DECLAMATION— 
how to read 

DELIVEEY— 

instructions for ... 
DIALOGUE— 

how to read 

DIDACTIC WORKS- 
how to read... , u 

DEAMA, THE— 

how to read 



158 
217 
168 
154 
167 



E. 



ELECTION— 

meetings at, how to address 

EMPHASIS — 

definition of ... 

uses of 

illustrations of ... ... 

EPITHETS— 

sparing use of » ... 

EXEECISES— 

in reading 

EXPEESSION— 

cultivation of ... „, .... 



294 

90 
92 
121 

25 

327 

74 



F. 

FACTS— 

uses and abuses of ... , 251 

FIGUEES — 

uses and abuses of 251 

marshalling of, in a speech 252 



GRAMMAR — 

study of 43 



INDEX, 



331 



L 

ILLUSTEATIONS — 

The Creation page 116 

Hamlet's Soliloquy 125 

Hamlet's Address to the Players 128 

Macbeth's Soliloquy 129 

Mr.Wopsle 131 

Burial of Sir John Moore 133 

Queen Mab 136 

Nathan's Parable 138 

Death of Paul Dombey 140 

Invocation to Light 149 

Julia's Letter 151 

Brutus's Speech 308 

Mark Antony's Speech 310 

INFLECTION — 

uses of 101 

INTEODUCTION 1 

J. 

JUEIES— 

how to address 261 



L. 

LANGUAGE — 

choice of 40 

avoid affectation and conceit 41 

study of 42 

how to write a sentence 43 

grammar , 43 



M. 

MAGISTEATES — 

how to address * ... 278 

MOB OEATOBY — 

instruction for 295 

MEETINGS, PUBLIC— 

how to address 287 

parish meetings 288 

religious meetings 289 

political meetings 289, 294 

mixed meetings , 290 

election meetings 294 



NAEEATIVE — 
how to read. 



N. 



152 



332 



INDEX, 



P. 

PAEISH MEETING — 

how to address . page 288 

PAUSE — 

use of 96 

illustrations of ... 121 

PEEOEATION, THE— 

instructions for 235 

POETEY — 

translate into prose 26 

how to read . 143 

how not to read it 144 

illustration , 149 

POLITICAL MEETINGS— 

instructions for ,. ... 289, 294 

PLAT F OEM, OEATOEY OF — 

characteristics of 281 

public meetings 282 

audiences of 283 

manner 284 

good humour and good temper ... ., 285 

courage .. ... 285 

language 286 

the parish meeting ... 288 

the religious meeting 289 

mixed meetings 290 

political meetings 289, 294 

election speeches 294 

mob oratory ... 295 

Brutus's Speech ... 308 

Antony's Speech 310 

PEONUNCIATION— 

of words ... ... 71 

of sentences 73 

expression , ... 73 

PUBLIC MEETINGS— 

how to address 287 

PUBLIC EEADINGS SOCIETIES— 

origin of 321 

management of , 322 

readers at 323 

selections for ... ,. ... 324 

instructions for ... 325 

PULPIT, OEATOEY OF— 

neglect of 9 

causes of neglect 11 

instructions for 239 

the subject ... 240 

rarity of 241 



INDEX. 



333 



PULPIT, OEATOEY OF— continued. 

delivery page 243 

action and attitude 244 

construction of a sermon ... 245 

PUNCTUATION — 

observance of 100 

E. 

EEADING — 



what to read ... ... 29 

three kinds of 30 

good readers, rare 60 

use of 60 176, 

how it differs from acting 77 

requirements for 108 

at public readings 321 

exercises in 327 

EEADING, AET OF — 

neglect of 8 

few persons have mastered 8 

causes of neglect of 11 

what to read 29 

uses of 59 

good reading conducts to good speaking 60 

requirements of 62 

of reading rightly 62 

necessary to understand 62 

rapidity of perception ... 63 

practice for 64 

reading aloud ■ ... 66 

what to avoid 67 

mannerism ., ... 67 

monotony ... 67 

first lesson 68 

articulation ... 70 

pronunciation of sentences 73 

expression ... 73 

difference between acting and reading 77 

management of the voice ... 83 

tone ... 87 

emphasis 90 

pause and punctuation ... 96 

inflection ... 101 

attitude... 104 

mental cultivation 107 

clerical reading 108, 112 

illustration 115 

lessons in reading ... 116 

reading by children ... ... 122 

Hamlet's Soliloquy ... 125 

Hamlet's Speech to the Players , 128 

Macbeth's Soliloquy ... 129 

Burial of Sir John Moore 133 

Queen Mab 136 



INDEX. 



BEADING, AET OF— continued. 

Nathan's Parable page 138 

Death of Paul Donibey 140 

how to read poetry 143 

narrative 152 

didactic works 155 

sentimental works 157 

declamation... 158 

reading the Bible 160 

dramatic reading 167 

uses of reading 176 

public readings 321 

KEPLY, THE — 

hints for 256 

RHYTHM — 

observance of 52 

S. 

SATURDAY REVIEW— 

on reading ... 108 

SENATE — 

oratory of 248 

the business speech 250 

the oration 253 

the reply 256 

SENTENCES — 

how to frame 24 

structure of 47 

pronunciation of 73 

SENTIMENTAL WORKS - 

how to read «« ... ... ... 157 

SERMONS— 

delivery of 243 

construction of ... ... 245 

language of 246 

SIMPLICITY — 

should be studied 55 

SOCIAL ORATORY— 

instructions for 315 

after-dinner speeches... ... 315 

characteristics of , 316 

SOCIETIES— 

for public reading, instruction for 321 

SPEAKING, ART OF — 

neglect of 7 

mastery of, by few 8 

causes of neglect of ... 11 

uses of 13 

foundations of 15 

oratory must be cultivated 15 

first care of a speaker ... 17 



INDEX. 



335 



SPEAKING, ABT OF— continued. 

what is a speech page 18 

composition ... 19 

preparations for 32 

foundations of 181, 185 

what to say 189 

composition of a speech 189 

cautions — how to begin 125 

writing a speech 197 



difficulties 200 

outlines of 201 

language of 201 

first lessons 202 

recitation of , - 205 

defects to be overcome ... 207 



remedies for 209 

public speaking 211 

preparations for 211 

do not write your speech ... ... 212 

your first speech 214 

delivery 217 

how to be heard 218 

management of the voice 219 

tone 220 

articulation ... 221 

variety 223 

action ... ... 225 

construction of a speech 231 

how to begin 232 

the peroration 235 

when to sit down 237 

oratory of the pulpit 239 

oratory of the senate 248 

the business speech ... 250 

use and abuse of facts and figures ... 251 

the oration ... 253 

the reply ... 256 

oratory of the bar ... , 258 

how to address a jury 261 

character of juries 267 

how to address the court 272 

how to address magistrates ... 278 

oratory of the platform 281 

parish meetings 288 

mixed meetings 290 

political meetings 289, 294 



social oratory ... 315 

SPECIAL JUEIES— 

how to address 272 

SPEECH— 

construction of ... ., ... ,,. ... 231 

STYLE — 

definition of , 34 

cultivation of ... 35 



336 



INDEX. 



T. 

THINKING— 

how to think page 30 

when to think 32 

" TIMES," THE — 

on the uses of the art of reading 112 

TONE— 

use of 87, 220 

illustrations of 121 



V. 

VOICE— 

management of ... 83, 219 

tones of 87 



W. 

WOEDS— 

study for 23 

choice of ... 46 

precision in ... 49 

parsing 50 

music of 52 

WEITING-, AET OF— 

first lessons in 21 

aid from authors 22 

words, study of 23 

sentences, framing of 24 

avoid adjectives ... 25 

translate poetry into prose ... 26 

reading and thinking... ... 28 

what to write 29 

what to read ... 29 

preparations for , 32 

style 34 

cultivation of 38 

language 40 

avoid affectation and conceit 41 

grammar 43 

choice of words ... 46 

structure of sentences 47 

must have something to say 48 

expression of thoughts 48 

precision in words ... 49 

parsing 50 

music of words 52 

rhythm 52 

write slowly 54 

simplicity ... 55 

directness ... 57 

order of ideas ... ... 57 

difference between, and speaking ... 190 



